







“Every American state is moving forward, 
and if we are to make the Indiana of the future 


V 


worthy of the Indiana of the past we must see to 
it that the state’s pace is quickened, its progress 
accelerated. To make Indiana a state efficiently 
and economically governed, a state within which 
the American ideal of justice and righteousness 






not only is cherished in our thoughts, but illus- 
; treated in legislation and administration, to 
lighten the burdens and broaden the oppor¬ 
tunities of the men, women and children who 
constitute the state’s most valuable resource, 
.and to create by good government a spirit of 
loyalty and good will in our citizenship, this 
should be the dominating purpose of our people 
;Jn public and private life, as we move into the 
second century of the state’s existence,” —Gov¬ 
ernor Goodrich. 




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FOREWORD 

Our supreme need is concrete information. 
A comprehensive grasp of the scope of con¬ 
stitutional revision cannot be had without 
facts. There must exist some definite knowl¬ 
edge upon all vital subjects involved and a 
clear conception of their relation to each 
other. 

The new constitution movement is funda¬ 
mentally civic and educational. Flashlight 

IiHCLiiOU.S Will jJLVJ L ctVcUi. 1 lit? pUjJtUai UVSliV 

for “headline information” and “cartoon edu¬ 
cation” must yield to thoughtful study and 
investigation. 

It is the purpose of this text-book or manual 
to offer a primary guide in direct civic study 
along all important lines of proposed consti¬ 
tutional change. It is believed that the man¬ 
ual will be especially helpful to groups and 
clubs in the conduct of open forums and 
public discussions. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


The Citizens League of Indiana_ 

New Constitution Forums_ 

Suggested Articles of Organization_ 

The All-Round View_ 

Organic and Statutory Law_ 

Official Recommendations Concerning Revision_ 

Suffrage and Elections_ 

Alien Suffrage _ 

Educational Test _!_ 

Poll Tax Requirement_ 

Primary Elections _ 

Registration Reform _ 

Woman Suffrage _*_ 

Prohibit Salary Increase___ 

City Government _ 

Our Constitutional Debt Limit_ 

Evil of Special Legislation_ 

Home Rule for Cities_ 

Main Forms of Municipal Government_ 

Education ___ 

The Short Ballot_ 

County Government_ 

Home Rule for Counties_ 

The Budget System___ 

Labor and Social Justice__ 

The Liquor Problem__ 

The Abolition of Capital Punishment__ 

The Recall __ 

Proportional Representation___ 

Our Legislative System--- 

Initiative and Referendum _ 

The Judiciary - 

Appointment and Tenure of Judges_ 

Justices of the Peace_ 

Unanimity of Verdict _ 

Jury Fact Body Only_ 

Qualifications for Lawyers-- 

Taxation _ 

General Property Tax - 

Classified Property Tax_ 

Income Tax _ 

Methods of Amendment_-_ 

Constitutional Conventions _ 

Federal Relations _____ 

As to Delegates _ 

One Idea vs. No Idea- 

Separate Proposals _ 

Registration - 

Constitutional Progress - 

The Modern Spirit in Constitution Making_ 

Address of Governor Goodrich_ 

Constitutional Convention Act _ 

Constitution of Indiana with Analysis of Sections. 
Reference Index to the Citizen Series of Lessons 
Bibliography - 


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THE CITIZENS LEAGUE OF 
INDIANA. 

The Citizens League of Indiana was organized in 
Fort Wayne August 1, 1914. Its primary object was 
to conduct an educational campaign for the purpose 
of helping to bring out a favorable vote upon the 
“question of calling a constitutional convention,” sub¬ 
mitted to the voters at the regular election in 1914. 

Much literature was produced and distributed by 
the League during the campaign, and a speakers’ bu¬ 
reau was maintained. The activities of the League 
were wholly non-partisan, and were devoted to the 
single end of procuring the calling of a non-partisan 
constitutional convention without specific commit¬ 
ment to any single or special reform that might be 
had through a new constitution. 

After the election of 1914, the League continued 
on the same general educational basis to aid in pre¬ 
paring for a complete and popular revision of the 
constitution of Indiana, and to have a non-partisan 
constitutional convention called for that purpose. 

The League opposed the proposed “twenty-two 
lost amendments’’ on the ground that they did not 
offer the people any bona fide opportunity to effect 
a general revision of the constitution. It took the 
position that no kind of patch-work revision by legis¬ 
lative amendments could possibly meet present-day 
needs. This attitude of the League has been fully 
endorsed. The “twenty-two lost amendments’’ pro¬ 
posed by the Legislature of 1913 were set aside by the 
Legislature of 1915. The Legislature of 1917 passed 
the act providing for a non-partisan Constitutional 
Convention as advocated by the Citizens League of 
Indiana. 

With the passage of this act, the primary and 
original object of the League was accomplished. Its 
sole purpose now is to aid in every possible way prior 
to the convention, and during its proceedings, to 
bring about a genuine, popular revision of the Con¬ 
stitution of Indiana by the people themselves. Its 
immediate plan is a simple educational movement to 
promote a New Constitution Forum in every commu- 


4 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


nity for the study and discussion of all important 
phases of constitutional revision. 

The controlling body of the League is an Executive 
Committee made up of the following members: 

Theodore F. Thieme, President Wayne Knitting Mills, 
Fort Wayne, Chairman; Ross F. Lockridge, Secretary. 

Winthrop E. Stone, President Purdue University, La- 
fayette. 

Samuel M. Foster, President German-American National 
Bank and Lincoln Life Insurance Co., Fort Wayne. 

Alvah J. Rucker, Prosecuting Attorney Marion County, 
Indianapolis. 

William H. Eichhorn, Judge Twenty-eighth Judicial Cir¬ 
cuit, Bluffton. 

Albert J. Veneman, County Attorney Vanderburgh County 
and ex-Speaker Indiana House of Representatives, Evans¬ 
ville. 

James H. McGill, President McGill Manufacturing Co., 
Valparaiso. 

James A. Woodburn, Professor American History and 
Politics, Indiana University, Bloomington. 

L. H. Wright, Master of the Indiana State Grange, In¬ 
dianapolis. 

Fred W. Keller, Mayor, South Bend. 

Winfield Miller, Retired Business Man, Indianapolis. 

Fred I. King, Editor Plain Dealer, Wabash. 

John F. McNamee, Editor and Manager Brotherhood of 
Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen’s Magazine, Indian¬ 
apolis. 

These officers agree in one thing, namely, that 
every important proposal of reform shall be fairly 
heard and shall be determined by the people. Each 
of them holds himself entirely free to advocate the 
final adoption of those particular things in which he 
believes, and to oppose those things in which he does 
not believe. 

The League has no fixed membership, but invites 
the co-operation of all citizens of Indiana who are 
willing to promote a fair and open hearing upon all 
possible improvements in our state and local govern¬ 
ment. 

The Citizens League is financed by voluntary con¬ 
tribution. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


5 


A NEW CONSTITUTION FORUM 
FOR EVERY COMMUNITY 
IN INDIANA. 

I ' 

Our coming Constitutional' Convention now con¬ 
stitutes the vital civic topic in Indiana. In fact, it 
presents a whole category of vital civic topics. Who 
should be delegates? What will the convention do? 
What should be taken out of our presqri^ constitution? 
What should be added to it? What new processes of 
state and local government should be considered ? 
These questions, with almost endless ramifications, 
now engross the public mind. 

The atmosphere is potential with misunderstand¬ 
ing and the prospect ranges from “wildest hopes to 
darkest doubts.’’ The chasms which yawn between 
well-meaning people in the matter of revising the Con¬ 
stitution of Indiana are for the most part purely 
imaginary. There is a common meeting place where 
nearly all fairminded citizens can unite. It will be 
found only in a common understanding such as can 
best be had through fair and open public discussion. 

This is the province of the Forums that are being 
established and promoted in every county and com¬ 
munity of the state under the auspices of the Citizens 
League of Indiana. Upon request, the League will 
send a representative to any community in the state 
to help start a Forum and will also furnish literature 
and speakers if desired. It is the purpose of the Cit¬ 
izens League of Indiana to encourage and promote 
the Forum movement in every feasible way without 
assuming any responsibility whatever for the direction 
or control of any Forum. Those Forums will be 
most successful where the discussions are carried on 
most actively by home people. 

The purpose of these Forums is to hold a series 
of public meetings for the free and full discussion of 
all phases of constitutional revision. Each Forum is 
entirely local in its direct control and management 
and must embrace within its membership every indi¬ 
vidual and organic element of the community. Pro¬ 
grams will be arranged according to the desires of the 


6 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


members. The following are some of the more im¬ 
portant subjects that are now being discussed: 

What a New Constitution Means. 

Home Rule for Cities. 

Educational Freedom. 

Initiative and Referendum. 

Short Ballot. 

Recall and Impeachment. 

Judicial Reform. 

Taxation Reform. 

Reform in Suffrage and Elections. 

Labor and Social Justice. 

Budget System. 

Proportional Representation. 

The Liquor Problem. 

Mention of these topics is not intended to be 
exclusive of others that may be of either local or gen¬ 
eral interest. 

The Constitutional Convention Act provides for 
the separate submission of controverted proposals 
which means that the people of Indiana will have an 
opportunity to determine all proposed modern reforms 
in state and local government, each upon its own 
merits. 

Some of the larger Forums are planning mock con¬ 
stitutional conventions. 

The Open Forum is the most truly democratic of 
all institutions. It is defined by the Congress of 
Forums as: 

“A bridge across the chasm of misunderstandings.” 

“A combination of the University and the New England 
Town meeting.” 

“A platform from which the expert may speak and an 
audience which has the privilege of participating in the dis¬ 
cussion.” 

“It neutralizes extremes and encourages a constructive 
attitude of mind by bringing about a better understanding 
between the conflicting elements of society.” 

It rests upon the belief that “the democracy of 
public discussion is essential to the democracy of gov¬ 
ernment.” 

Through the Forums, our commonwealth is taking 
itself to school and enjoying a complete vocational 
course in modern civics. Indeed the entire common¬ 
wealth is rapidly becoming one great live civic Forum. 
The Forum movement in Indiana will necessarily 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


7 


result in promoting only those reforms of an organic 
nature which by the rigid test of public scrutiny and 
the intelligent analysis of public discussion, prove to 
be for the best welfare. This is government by public 
opinion and herein lies our supreme safety. 

We have nothing to fear from popular discussion, 
however erroneous may be some of the contentions 
which result therefrom. We can gladly welcome the 
most unqualified freedom of speech in these gather¬ 
ings and indulge a fair hearing of even the most mis¬ 
taken proposals, letting them stand, in the words oi 
Jefferson, as “monuments of the safety with which 
error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left 
free to combat it.” 

“This is true liberty when free-born men 
Having to advise the public may speak free, 

Which he who can and will deserves high praise, 
Who neither can nor will may hold his peace. 

What can be juster in a state than this?” 

—Milton. 


SUGGESTED ARTICLES OF ORGAN¬ 
IZATION OF COUNTY NEW 
CONSTITUTION FORUMS. 


(May be adopted with slight alteration by Community 

Forums.) 

I. PURPOSE. 

It shall be the purpose of this organization to hold a 
series of open public meetings through the co-operative 
effort of all civic organizations and interested citizens for 
the full and fair discussion of all phases of constitutional 
revision and to assist in the establishment of community 
Forums in other parts of the county. This organization 
shall be a branch of the Citizens League of Indiana for the 
particular purpose of establishing and conducting Forums. 


II. MEMBERSHIP. 

Any citizen of the county is a member of the Forum by 
virtue of attendance at the meetings. There shall be no 
dues, and expenses shall be met by voluntary contribution. 


8 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


III. OFFICERS. 

The controlling body shall be an executive committee of 
five members who shall be elected at the first regular meet¬ 
ing. It may appoint such special committees as may be 
necessary and shall select an advisory council, in which 
every allied organization shall have one active representa¬ 
tive, and shall appoint a secretary-treasurer, whose duty 
will be to keep records, attend to correspondence and pub¬ 
licity and be the active director of the Forum. The chair¬ 
man of the executive committee shall preside at all meet¬ 
ings or appoint some one to do so and shall call special 
meetings of the committee and of the advisory council either 
upon his own initiative or upon request of the secretary 
and one member. The executive committee shall arrange 
and announce programs for meetings two weeks in advance. 
It shall be the duty of the secretary to see that a complete 
report of all meetings is published in all local papers and 
to make report of all proceedings to the Citizens League of 
Indiana. 


IV. MEETINGS. 


Meetings shall be held at such times as the executive 
committee may determine—every two weeks, if possible. 
Each meeting shall be devoted to a thorough discussion of 
some general or special subject involved in the revision of 

should be assigned T for each 'meetlngT Wt "amV 1 uRQ^akers 
speech or speeches, any member of the audience shall be 
privileged to ask questions or to join in voluntary discus¬ 
sion of the subject of the evening. Neither the Forum nor 
the Citizens League of Indiana shall be in any way bound by, 


or held accountable for the views expressed at any meet¬ 
ing. All proceedings shall be wholly non-partisan in char¬ 
acter and conduct. All candidates for delegates shall be 
given a fair hearing in the Forum, but the organization shall 
not be used to promote the special interest of any can¬ 


didate. 


V. MISCELLANEOUS. 


It shall be a province of the Forum to develop local 
speakers and to exchange talent with similar Forums in 
neighboring counties. Special speakers may be procured 
through the speakers bureau of the Citizens League of 
Indiana on payment of necessary traveling expenses. 

(Note.—These suggested articles, with slight alterations 
to suit local conditions, have been adopted in practically 
all county and community Forums.) 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


9 


THE ALL-ROUND VIEW. 

Next to the meaningless fear that the new consti¬ 
tution will abolish all ancient safeguards, or the equal¬ 
ly unfounded idea that our present constitution can¬ 
not be improved, is the occasionally noted tendency 
to look upon the new constitution movement from a 
single vantage point of view. There may be some 
who regard it as a dry movement, others as a woman’s 
suffrage movement, and still others who think of it 
only in the interest of a certain kind of tax regulation, 
or of a species of municipal reform. 

It is sufficient to say for these “single track” views 
that “once upon a time, six blind men went to see the 
elephant.” From their individual positions, they 
reached the various conclusions that the elephant was 
like “a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree, a fan, and a 
rope,” and “though each was partly in the right, yet 
all were in the wrong.” 

The effort to obtain a new constitution is not a 
single reform movement. It is based upon the fun- 

dmental program of complete, all-round revision. 

# 

To those who have investigated the subject care¬ 
fully, there appears as much need of revision in the 
field of suffrage and elections as in taxation; in the 
realm of city government as in that of court reform; 
in the need of executive and administrative improve¬ 
ment, as well as in legislation. In fact, there is a 
broad opportunity for organic improvement in all 
fields of state and local government. The epoch-mak¬ 
ing progress of 67 years has brought experience and 
wisdom that can be applied to everything in our gov¬ 
ernment as it has applied to everything else under 
the sun. Our constitutional convention should avail 
itself of all the accumulated lessons of progress in 
civic affairs in other states and countries. 

The supreme requirement insuring safe advance¬ 
ment of the movement for genuine constitutional re¬ 
vision is a thorough, all-round view, and a proper con¬ 
ception of needed improvement along all lines, each 
in its relation to every other. It is for the purpose 
of ministering to this broader view, and to make clear 
the whole scope of the subject or subjects of constitu¬ 
tional revision that this manual has been prepared. 


10 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


ORGANIC AND STATUTORY LAW. 

The nature of a constitution can be best deter¬ 
mined by distinguishing it. from statutory or ordinary 
law. We divide the great body of written law into 
two general classes—fundamental and ordinary. Our 
ordinary law consists of the great body of enactments 
of legislative bodies—statutes, ordinances, etc. The 
fundamental, or organic law, is embodied in written 
constitutions. Ordinary law is the work of legislative 
bodies which convene frequently at regular and stated 
periods. The constitution, or fundamental law, as 
defined by Jameson is: 

“The work only of a convention, a special and extraor¬ 
dinary assembly convening at no regularly recurring 
periods, but whenever the harvest of constitutional reforms 
has become ripe.” 

Woodrow Wilson, in his book, “The State,” says: 

“Constitutions are, in their proper sense, bodies of law 
by which government is constituted; by which, that is, gov¬ 
ernment is given its organization and functions.” 

In our one hundred years of history we have had, 
in Indiana, seventy sessions of the General Assembly, 
each one of which has given us several hundred pages 
of ordinary laws. 

During this century, we have had only two con¬ 
stitutional conventions, 1816 and 1850-51, and conse¬ 
quently, only two constitutions. Our constitution 
contains about 10,000 words. Almost any session of 
a state legislature passes many single acts that con¬ 
tain more words, sections and articles than does our 
entire constitution. 

Statutes frequently change. In fact, most of the 
enactments of any legislative session are for the pur¬ 
pose of amending or repealing acts of previous ses¬ 
sions. TJiese ordinary laws go into all phases of 
private relations, and are frequently local and provin¬ 
cial in nature. 

It is the province of the constitution to “consti¬ 
tute” the foundation and framework of the govern¬ 
ment, and not to embody the details of its operations 
in specific matters. A constitution that is really writ¬ 
ten as the organic instrument of a free people,—open 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


11 


and unrestricted in its terms,—need not undergo 
numerous changes, at least within the day and gener¬ 
ation for which it is written. 

Perhaps the fundamental distinction of the consti¬ 
tution is that the people themselves make it. We 
cannot conceive of a constitution being enacted or 
promulgated by a legislative body. In their consti¬ 
tution, the people provide themselves with the organic 
framework and fundamental procedure whereby they 
hope to work their will in government by the agencies 
which they establish. 

The constitutional convention is a special body 
acting in a delegate capacity. The people select these 
delegates. The delegates frame a proposed constitu¬ 
tion and refer it back to the people. If approved by 
the people, the constitution becomes their organic 
law. If it is rejected by the people, the work of the 
convention is set at naught. 

In construing constitutions, the courts recognize 
the general rule of trying to determine “what the 
people meant when they adopted the constitution” 
rather than “what the delegates meant when they 
wrote it.” 


OFFICIAL RECOMMENDATIONS 
CONCERNING NEEDED CON¬ 
STITUTIONAL REVISION. 

Throughout Governor Marshall’s administration, 
1909-13, a vigorous effort was made to procure needed 
constitutional changes without the aid of a constitu¬ 
tional convention. The short method of revising the 
constitution,—proposing a new one in fact,—by legis¬ 
lative enactment and direct submission to the people 
was attempted in the Legislature of 1911. This pro¬ 
posed new constitution, commonly known as the 
Marshall Constitution, was never submitted to the 
people for the reason that the courts from the Marion 
circuit court to the supreme court of the United States 
held in effect that the legislature was without author¬ 
ity to write a new constitution or to revise the old one 
other than by the regular procedure provided in the 


12 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


constitution itself. Near the end of his term, in Oc¬ 
tober, 1912, Governor Marshall expressed himself con¬ 
cerning our constitutional situation as follows: 

(Quoted from Worlds Work, October, 1912.) 

“The original constitution of our state, framed under the 
old oak at Corydon, contained no provision for amendment, 
but provided that every twelve years a vote should be taken 
as to whether a convention should be called, and that the 
General Assembly should, if the vote were favorable, provide 
for such convention; also, that the convention should have 
the power to revise, amend, or change the constitution. The 
vote, therefore, should have been taken in 1828, ’40 and ’52. 
However, the General Assembly in 1849 called a constitu¬ 
tional convention, caused the deliberations of the conven¬ 
tion to be filed with the secretary of state, and then sub¬ 
mitted the convention’s document to the people, who adopted 
it. The new instrument went into effect in 1851. 

“It will be observed that the convention was not called 
in accordance with the requirements of the old constitution; 
also, that the new constitution was adopted not only by the 
convention but ultimately by the people. If it is necessary 
to follow strictly the constitution in order to obtain a new 
one, then the constitution of 1851 is unconstitutional. 

“The new constitution did provide for its own amendment, 
but see how its provision has actually worked—or failed to 
work. This is the method: a proposed amendment must pass 
two General Assemblies by a majority vote in each house; it 
must then receive a majority of all the votes cast at the elec¬ 
tion in which it is submitted to the people—a majority, that 
is, of the votes cast at the election, not merely of those cast 
on the amendment. While one amendment is pending, no 
other may be proposed. / 

“Now, what do you think of the chances of getting that 
constitution amended? In earlier, simpler days two amend¬ 
ments did get through at special elections, but for thirty 
years it has been impossible to alter a syllable. I don’t need 
to tell you or anybody with intelligence that a state constitu¬ 
tion that can’t be altered is a frightful handicap. No matter 
how conservative and old-fashioned you are, there are some 
ideas which were popular a generation ago that simply won’t 
work under the conditions of today. 

“The people of Indiana are bound down under a funda¬ 
mental law which they have no means of amending by so 
much as a punctuation mark. 

“Now, a constitution is sacred to me. But the rights of 
the people are more sacred. A constitution has got to be a 
workable thing, and when one fails to work—why, then it’s 
time to get another. 

“Are not the people of a state superior to a constitution 
which they themselves made, but which has ceased to be 
workable? Does anybody seriously assert that a sovereign 
people are obliged to remain bound hand and foot because 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


13 


a document which was never intended to do more than guide 
them has brought them to a standstill? . . . Were the 

people made for the constitution or the constitution for the 
people?” , 

Governor Ralston, in his Inaugural Address and 
first message to the Legislature in 1913, said; 

“In my opening campaign speech last fall, I stated that 
while I personally favored a constitutional convention, I had 
no authority to commit my party to such a movement, but 
that without regard to my individual views, I would, in the 
event of my election, make such recommendations as to the 
advisability of calling a convention as I believed fairly repre¬ 
sented the views of the people. 

“What then are the views of the people on this subject? 

“The Democratic legislature in 1911 believed that the 
present constitution of Indiana did not meet the requirements 
of the people, and so holding it prepared for submission to 
the voters of Indiana a new constitution. 

“The Progressive and the Republican parties, in their re¬ 
spective platforms of 1912, declared in favor of a constitu¬ 
tional convention. Unless the Democratic legislature of 1911 
and the Progressive and Republican parties were all mistaken, 
the people of Indiana are in need of, and want a new con¬ 
stitution. 

“Is it strange that they should desire an up-to-date organic 
law? Their present constitution was adopted more than sixty 
years ago. Since then the development of our state has been 
marvelous. Its population has greatly increased and its intel¬ 
lectual, social and material progress have multiplied many 
fold. New questions have arisen that cannot be solved under 
the present instrument and new conditions make it necessary 
for the people to assert rights they cannot exercise there¬ 
under. ^ 

“What is a government for if it is not to serve the purpose 
of the people? Thomas Jefferson believed so strongly that 
this was the object of government that he maintained that a 
constitution should contain a provision for its revision every 
twenty years. There have been but few, if any, men in this 
state who excelled the late Governor Isaac P. Gray in ability 
accurately to interpret public sentiment. In his message to 
the legislature more than twenty years ago he strongly advo¬ 
cated the calling of a constitutional convention. 

“I have thus briefly stated the facts that I believe show 
that the people want a new constitution, and personally I 
favor a constitutional convention.” 

The legislature of 1913 submitted the question ol 
calling a convention in 1915 to a referendum vote in 
the regular election of 1914 and at the same time pro¬ 
posed twenty-two amendments, commonly known as 
the “lost” amendments. The pending amendments con¬ 
fused the issue and the question of calling a Constitu- 


14 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


tional Convention was lost in the heat and strife of 
partisan politics. The succeeding legislature, 1915, 
found that the twenty-two proposed amendments were 
entirely unsatisfactory and they were all set aside. 

Near the close of his term, on November 17, 1916, 
Governor Ralston made public announcement of his 
intention to recommend the calling of a Constitutional 
Convention in his farewell message to the legislature 
of 1917. In this announcement, he reiterated his state¬ 
ment of 1913 and made the further significant com¬ 
ment : 

“We know from experience that it is almost impossible 
to amend our constitution.” 

It may be fairly stated that the administrations of 
both Governor Marshall and Governor Ralston ex¬ 
hausted every effort to revise the constitution with¬ 
out the necessity of calling a convention. Governor 
Ralston’s final recommendation to the legislature of 
1917 is as follows: 

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 

An Indiana historian has said that “No more important 
body of men ever assembled in the State of Indiana than that 
which met in the hall of representatives in the old state 
capitol in Indianapolis, October 7, 1850, to revise the constitu¬ 
tion of the state.” The statement might have gone further 
without transcending the truth and have declared that no 
abler body of men than these ever assembled in this state. 
Their work lives after them and will long be recognized as a 
memorial to their superior wisdom. 

These patriots did not live alone for themselves, but for 
the future generation of their commonwealth; and they con¬ 
structed a constitution that was far in advance of their time, 
and one that has proven to be a very great instrument of 
civil government. They did not believe, however, that the 
constitution they made would always meet the needs of. the 
people of Indiana, and this is why they provided for its im¬ 
provement by amendment. They were wise enough to sup¬ 
plant the constitution of 1816 by their work, and they took 
it for granted that later generations would be far-seeing 
enough not to hesitate to set aside the organic law they 
framed when by so doing they would better promote the 
public welfare. 

Has the time arrived for a new constitution in this state? 
The Sixty-seventh General Assembly, the majority of which 
was composed of men of my own political affiliation, evidently 
thought that it had, for it prepared a new constitution and 
sought to have it ratified by the people in the briefest pos- 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


15 


sible time. Both the Republican and Progressive parties, and 
I think other political parties, have in recent years declared 
more than once for a new constitution. 

It is fair to assume that this action by these different 
political organizations reflects public opinion on the subject, 
aside from the views favorable thereto held by the forward- 
looking men and women of Indiana whose qualifications for 
citizenship are of the first order. 

MANY QUESTIONS UP. 

There are many sweeping questions in the affairs of gov¬ 
ernment that cannot be legislated upon in this state in the 
absence of numerous amendments to our present constitution, 
or unless we get a new constitution broad enough to permit 
the consideration of legislation thereon. Some of these ques¬ 
tions doubtless are not of sufficient merit to be legislated on, 
but that is no objection to the people having an organic law 
that will permit them to be considered by the General As¬ 
sembly, or that does not practically prohibit any amendment 
thereto, despite the desire of the voters of the state. The 
mode of amendment prescribed by the present constitution is 
not satisfactory. Many sober-minded and thinking people 
believe it is hedged about by difficulties that result in nothing 
less than the defeat of justice. It prevents the doing of many 
things that are just and in harmony with the people’s most 
enlightened conscience. 

I recommend, therefore, that you call a constitutional con¬ 
vention and that the same be safeguarded as far as possible 
against partisan politics. The details of such a convention 
you will have to work out with great deliberation. It will 
require the exercise of your united wisdom. Nothing but 
your finest heart impulses and purest purposes should shape 
your course. A free people’s organic law is the covenant of 
their liberties and should be the exponent of their noblest 
conception of man’s relation to society and civilization. 

The members of this convention should be chosen at a 
special election and under conditions when no partisan issues 
are to be considered. Their names should be printed on a 
ballot that bears no political distinction, and everything pos¬ 
sible should be done to enable the people to elect men whose 
qualifications and characters will be an assurance of their 
desire to serve the public in a wholly disinterested manner.” 

Governor Goodrich in his first message to the legis¬ 
lature of 1917 presented the following recommenda¬ 
tions concerning the need of constitutional revision by 
amendment or by convention and directly recom¬ 
mended the calling of a convention. 

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. 

“I submit for your consideration certain proposed amend¬ 
ments to the constitution of our state, which I believe in the 


16 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


public interest should be passed by the General Assembly for 
final submission to the people of the state for their ratifica¬ 
tion. 

BUDGET SYSTEM. 

0 S # 1 i’ 4 

The finances of our state call for a more centralized and 
responsible control. Sound public policy requires that effec¬ 
tive measures be adopted for giving the Governor power over 
the Budget which is commensurate with the present respon¬ 
sibility really vested in him by popular opinion. Nothing 
short of thoroughgoing treatment of the subject which will 
impose on the Governor the duty of formulating, submitting 
and defending all budget bills will solve the problem of 
securing economy and responsibility in the conduct of public 
business. 

I, therefore, recommend that a joint resolution be passed 
submitting a constitutional amendment by the terms of which 
there shall be prepared under executive direction a budget 
for submission to the legislature and that when such budget 
is submitted, while any one or more items may be reduced, 
they can not be increased. The amendment should further 
provide that the Governor shall be authorized to veto any 
one or more items in any appropriation bill. 

TAX REFORM. 

I recommend the adoption of a resolution submitting an 
amendment to the constitution authorizing the legislature to 
classify property, and a further amendment in connection 
with this, fixing a constitutional limitation upon the tax rate. 

INCREASES OF SALARIES. 

We have witnessed at almost every session of the legisla¬ 
ture a constant demand on the part of public officials elected 
or ap-pointed to office to have their salaries increased. 

I believe that there should be a constitutional prohibition 
against this practice, and I therefore recommend a constitu¬ 
tional amendment prohibiting the increase of the salary of 
any public official for the term of office for which he shall 
have been elected or. appointed. 

REGISTRATION OF VOTERS. 

Under the constitution, no registration law can be passed, 
except that which would apply alike to all the voters of the 
state. It is clearly unnecessary to incur the expense of regis¬ 
tering voters in Indiana in more than eight or ten counties. 
An amendment to the constitution authorizing the legislature 
to classify counties for registration purposes not only would 
result in saving large sums of money to the taxpayers of the 
state, but also would save much unnecessary trouble to our 
citizens. 

I, therefore, recommend that an amendment to the con¬ 
stitution be submitted authorizing the classification of coun¬ 
ties and cities for registration purposes. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


17 


SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION. 

The office of state superintendent of public instruction is 
a constitutional office at the present time and this official is 
elected by the people of the state; this office should be an 
appointive one and should be made on merit for an indefinite 
term of years and the official be permitted to retain his place 
,as long as he renders efficient service to the state. 

I recommend that an amendment be submitted authorizing 
the appointment of the state superintendent of public in¬ 
struction. 

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 

The present constitution of Indiana was adopted over 
sixty years ago when the needs of our state were compara¬ 
tively simple. Naturally, our state charter was drafted to 
meet conditions as they existed at that time. 

Since 1851 our state government has become so complex 
that many of the provisions of the constitution which were in 
point sixty years ago no longer cover our present conditions 
of society. 

Sixty years ago, interurbans, telegraphs, telephones, elec¬ 
tric light and power plants were unknown. Practically, all 
property was of a tangible nature and our present methods 
of doing business through corporations were undeveloped. 
We were almost altogether an agricultural people and our 
industrial development, while not wholly unforeseen, was 
not anticipated in its details. 

In this message I have already pointed out certain import¬ 
ant measures, especially the proposed remedies for the in¬ 
equalities of taxation, which require for their consummation 
constitutional amendments. It has been found almost im¬ 
possible to amend the present constitution by the method 
proposed in the constitution itself, yet there is an immediate 
need for the changes specifically indicated, and for other 
changes in conformity with the changed industrial and com¬ 
mercial fabric of society. The public interest requires that 
there be no further delay in changing the constitution so 
that we may meet squarely the important problems which 
confront us at this time. I believe, as a matter of fact, that 
these changes can be accomplished more satisfactorily 
through a constitutional convention than through any other 
method. 

The question of. holding a constitutional convention has 
been under public discussion for a number of years, and 
therefore, is not a new issue. At various times the Republi¬ 
can party has declared in favor of holding a convention to 
draft a new' constitution, and in the recent campaign it de¬ 
clared in favor of a number of important amendments in 
which the people generally have deep concern. Because of 
the great benefits which I am sure will be derived from an 
immediate revision of the constitution, I feel justified in pro¬ 
posing that this legislature shall call a constitutional con- 


18 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


vention, to convene in January, 1918. I recommend that the 
General Assembly provide for the election of a suitable 
number of delegates-at-large and the conduct of the election 
on a strictly non-partisan basis. 

If this recommendation should be approved by the General 
Assembly, then no consideration need be given to the specific 
amendments hereinbefore suggested, as they can all be de¬ 
termined by the convention itself.” 

The act which was passed by the legislature of 
1917 followed closely the main features of the recom¬ 
mendations of Governor Ralston and Governor Good¬ 
rich especially as to the non-partisan character of the 
convention and the method of selecting the delegates. 


SUFFRAGE AND ELECTIONS. 

It is difficult for us today to realize fully the signi¬ 
ficance of the changes which two generations have 
brought affecting the conduct of elections in Indiana. 
The election in Terre Haute on August 4, 1851, in 
which our present constitution was voted upon and 
adopted was conducted so honestly and peaceably that 
an Englishman who was in Terre Haute at the time 
published a story of it in London in 1855 lauding the 
little Indiana village on the Wabash as a model of 
civic purity. 

Since then, the story of some late elections in Terre 
Haute has been told in the Federal court at Indian¬ 
apolis. But Terre Haute is not alone in her bad emin¬ 
ence as to election frauds. Quite recently, 106 men of 
Indiana pleaded guilty in the Federal court at Indian¬ 
apolis to frauds committed in the election of 1916. 
They were not from Terre Haute. They were from 
Indianapolis, .Evansville, Frankfort and Gary. 

The truth is that Indiana cities now actually oc¬ 
cupy a “place in the sun” in the matter of crooked 
elections. This is not due to a decline in the public 
morality or civic intelligence of the people since 1851. 
It is due to fundamentally changed conditions and to 
profoundly altered problems with which our system 
and machinery of government have not kept p.?.ce. 

What was there in Terre Haute and the other little 
Indiana towns in 1851 of a public nature that was 
worth stealing an election over? There were no valu- 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


19 


able franchises, privileges, contracts for public im¬ 
provements, etc., etc., worth stealing or giving or bar¬ 
tering away. 

The wealthy cities of Indiana today have vast har¬ 
vests of “spoils’’ for the control of which politicians 
have been found willing to pay the price in unmeas¬ 
ured political crookedness. They will continue to do 
this as long as our backward system offers ready 
temptation and inducement. 

We have simply been relying upon latch string ma¬ 
chinery for a time lock age. 

Our constitution provides in Art. II, Section 2: 

“In all elections not otherwise provided for by this con¬ 
stitution, every male citizen of the United States, of the age 
of twenty-one years and upwards, who shall have resided in 
the state during the six months, and in the township sixty 
days, and in the ward or precinct thirty days immediately 
preceding such election; and every male of foreign birth, of 
the age of twenty-one years and upwards who shall have 
resided in the United States one year, and shall have re¬ 
sided in this State during the six months, and in the town¬ 
ship sixty days and in the ward or precinct thirty days, im¬ 
mediately preceding such election, and shall have declared 
his intention to become a citizen of the United States, con¬ 
formably to the laws of the United States on the subject of 
naturalization, shall be entitled to vote in the township or 
precinct where he may reside, if he shall have been duly 
registered according to law.” 

This is the basis of our present provisions for suf¬ 
frage and elections. 

There are six main phases of this subject that will 
be involved in the revision of the constitution: 

I. Elimination of Alien Vote. 

II. Educational Test. 

III. Poll Tax Requirement. 

IV. Primary Elections. 

V. Registration. 

VI. Woman Suffrage. 

I. ALIEN SUFFRAGE. 

Our constitution makes the foreigner a voter in In¬ 
diana four years before he is a citizen. Under this 
provision, the hordes of foreign laborers who come to 
Indiana without their families and with no intention 
of making homes here are handled directly by political 
manipulators. Their ‘first papers’ are taken out for 


20 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


them and they enjoy suffrage without citizenship until 
they return to the land from which they have never 
foresworn allegiance. 

This practice is explained by the following figures 


for election years: 




Declared 



Intention. 

Naturalized. 

1904 _ 

_ 4,690 

499 

1908'_ 

_ 5,785 

151 

1910 _ 

_ 4,339 

209 

1912 _ 

_ 3,027 

459 

Taking out first 

papers for the sole purpose of 

voting is particularly 

common among Austrians, Ital- 

ians and Russians, as shown by the records for the 

past ten years. 




Declared 


* , ' 

Intention. 

Naturalized. 

Austrians 

_ 6,710 

486 

Italians 

_ 4,056 

150 

Russians 

_ 3,218 

344 


We have now approximately 50,000 non-citizen 
voters in Indiana. 

This is a reflection of another day when we wanted 
foreigners to settle our unpopulated farm lands. 

The foreign immigration problem has been a seri¬ 
ous one in the nation and in many of the states for 
several decades- That it will become increasingly 
serious as a result of the great world war now going 
on is self-evident. 

Students of the immigration problem see the for¬ 
eign menace looming very large on our immediate 
vision. Henry M. Hyde, writing in the Chicago Trib¬ 
une, sets forth the situation as viewed by students of 
the subject. Mr. Hyde says: 

“They foresee the coming of millions of illiterate, un¬ 
skilled, penniless laborers, who will undercut wages, lower 
the standard of living while increasing its cost, increase child 
labor, lengthen the hours of work, make peonage more pos¬ 
sible and postpone for years the success of the woman’s 
movement in the United States. 

They shudder at what will happen when the twentieth 
century is invaded by a vast army of people who have never 
risen above the standards of the sixteenth century. 

They declare that now, while the war is acting as a tem¬ 
porary barrier to immigration, the people of the United States 









AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


21 


should take some steps which will prevent the inundation of 
democratic institutions by an abject and illiterate flood of 
feudal peasants and oriental serfs. 

With the coming of peace they believe that not only will 
immigration from southern and eastern Europe be renewed 
on a much greater scale, but that new and swelling streams 
will start from all of western Asia and as far east as Persia.” 

W hile this is a national problem it is also a matter 
for state consideration since the fixing of qualifica¬ 
tions for suffrage and the conduct of elections are 
within the province of the state. Certainly our new 
constitution will require that a voter be at least a 
citizen. 


II. EDUCATIONAL TEST. 

It is worthy of consideration whether or not in this 
day of general enlightenment and free public educa¬ 
tion, it is too much to ask of a voter that he be able 
to read his ballot before he casts it. Some form of 
educational test requiring at least the ability to read 
and write in English now prevails in the following 
states: 

Mississippi 
Oklahoma 
South Carolina 
Wyoming 
Massachusetts. 


Arizona 

California 

Delaware 

Louisiana 

Maine 


III. POLL TAX REQUIREMENT. 

It has been advocated on reasonable grounds that 
the matter of requiring a voter to show his poll tax 
receipt for the year of the election and perhaps of the 
year preceding the election should be made a condition 
of suffrage. It is thought that this would insure more 
stability. The following states have some form of 
‘tax paying’ qualifications for suffrage: 

Arkansas Tennessee 

Pennsylvania Virginia 

South Carolina 


IV. PRIMARY ELECTIONS. 

Mandatory and preferential primaries,—a system 
whereby all the people participate in choosing candi¬ 
dates whose names go on the ballot in all elections are 


22 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


now a fundamental part of the machinery of elections 
in nearly all of our states. Our Constitutional Con¬ 
vention will certainly consider whether or not this sub¬ 
ject should be taken entirely out of politics,—where 
it now is as a football of contending political factions 
in state legislatures,—and settled permanently by the 
constitution. 

V. REGISTRATION REFORM. 

Registration is really a qualification for suffrage, 
or at least such is implied in our constitution. Section 
14 of Article II seems to make a general registration 
law mandatory since it says that the general assembly 

“shall also provide for the registration of ALL 
persons entitled to vote.” 

Section 23 of Article IV provides that in 

“all cases where a general law can be made ap¬ 
plicable all laws shall be general and of uniform 
operation throughout the state.” 

By reason of these requirements, our registration 
law must apply to all voters in city and country alike. 
Its operation is very burdensome and is expensive 
especially in the country where there is absolutely no 
need of registration. It actually results in preventing 
many old time residents from voting. The adminis¬ 
tration of this law in 1912 cost $283,000 ($62,000 more 
than the election itself.) 

Governor Goodrich made reference to this matter 

in his message of January 8th, as follows: 

0 * 

“Under the constitution, no registration law can be passed, 
except that which would apply alike to all voters of the state. 
It is clearly unnecessary to incur the expense of registering 
voters in Indiana in more than eight or ten counties. An 
amendment to the constitution authorizing the legislature to 
classify counties for registration purposes not only would 
result in saving large sums of money to the taxpayers of the 
state, but also would save unnecessary trouble to our 
citizens.” / 

All states except Arkansas and Texas require some 
form of registration full or limited. The following 
states limit registration to cities and towns: 


Ohio 

Nebraska 


North Dakota 
Oklahoma 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


23 


Kansas 

Missouri 

Illinois 

Kentucky 


Rhode Island 
Maine 

W ashington 
Iowa 


Certainly our new constitution will make possible 
a discriminating registration law. 


VI. WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

An Act granting women the right to vote for presi¬ 
dential electors and certain other officers, and to vote 
in certain elections. 

(Approved February 28, 1917.) 

Section 1. Be it Enacted by the General Assembly of the 
State of Indiana, That every woman who is a citizen of the 
United States of the age of twenty-one (21) years and up¬ 
ward, who shall have resided in this state during the six (6) 
months, and in the township sixty (60) days, and in the 
ward or precinct thirty (30) days, immediately preceding any 
election, shall be entitled to vote in the township or precinct 
where she may reside, for presidential electors, delegates 
to a constitutional convention, for attorney general, for 
chief of the bureau of statistics, for state geologist, for re¬ 
porter of the supreme court, for judges of the appellate 
court, the superior courts, criminal courts, probate courts 
and juvenile courts; for members of the county council; 
for county assessor; for township trustee, township advis¬ 
ory board and township assessor; for all elective officers of 
cities and towns; for all school officers elected by the peo¬ 
ple, and for all other elective officers not provided for in 
the constitution of Indiana, created by the General As¬ 
sembly of the State of Indiana; and upon all questions other 
than constitutional amendments, but including the ratifica¬ 
tion of a new constitution, which may be submitted to a 
vote of the people of the state or of any subdivision there¬ 
of, or of any municipality; and in any primary election such 
women shall have the right to vote for all officers nom¬ 
inated or elected at such primaries. 

Sec. 2. Separate ballot boxes and ballots shall be pro¬ 
vided for women, which ballots for officers shall contain the 
names of candidates who are to be voted for by women, and 
the ballots cast by women shall be canvassed and counted 
separately and shall be canvassed with other ballots. At any 
such election where registration is required, women voters 
shall be registered in the same manner as men voters. 

Under the provisions of this act and the constitu¬ 
tional convention act women will be permitted to vote 
upon their own enfranchisement. The constitutional 
convention will certainly submit the question of full 


24 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


and equal suffrage as a separate proposal to be de¬ 
termined upon its own merits. If a majority of the 
voters of the state including the women who vote upon 
this, vote favorably, then the question of woman suf¬ 
frage will be completely settled in Indiana. 

It is to be noted that women who are aliens cannot 
vote in Indiana under this law. An alien man can vote 
in Indiana without being a citizen but an alien woman 
cannot. The following is quoted from the condensa¬ 
tion of the naturalizatiton law of the United States by 
the Commissioner of Naturalization of the Depart¬ 
ment of Labor. 

NATURALIZATION OF WOMEN. 

The naturalization laws apply to unmarried alien women, 
and the foreign-born widows of aliens (who were not natural¬ 
ized). The citizenship and allegiance of a woman married to 
an alien is governed by that of the husband, and it has been 
held by the courts that during the existence of the marriage 
relation with an alien, a woman can neither be naturalized 
upon her own petition, nor file a valid declaration of inten¬ 
tion. A foreign-born widow of an alien may proceed upon 
the declaration of the deceased husband, and the alien wife of 
an insane alien may petition upon the declaration of the 
insane husband provided the wife has made a homestead 
entry under the United States land laws. 

CITIZENSHIP OF WOMEN. 

Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to a 
citizen, and who might herself be lawfully naturalized, shall 
be deemed a citizen. A foreign woman who acquires Ameri¬ 
can citizenship by marriage retains her citizenship after the 
termination of the marital relation if she continues to reside 
in the United States, unless she makes formal renunciation 
thereof before a naturalization court; or, if she resides abroad, 
she may retain her citizenship by registering before a United 
States Consul within one year after the termination of the 
marital relation. 

Loss of Citizenship by Marriage—An American woman 
who marries a foreigner takes the nationality of her hus¬ 
band. At the termination of the marital relation she may re¬ 
sume her American citizenship, if residing in the United 
States, by merely continuing to reside therein; or, if abroad, 
by registering before a United States Consul within one 
year, or by returning to reside in the United States. Under 
this law, the supreme court of the United States affirmed a 
decision of a California court that an American woman mar¬ 
ried to an alien cannot vote in that state. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


25 


PRESENT STATUS OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN 
THE UNITED STATES. 

EQUAL SUFFRAGE. 


Eleven states and 
frage. They are: 

Arizona 

California 

Colorado 

Idaho 

Kansas 

Montana 


have full and equal suf- 

Nevada 

Oregon 

Utah 

W ashington 
Wyoming 


Alaska 


LIMITED SUFFRAGE. 

Four states have presidential or limited suffrage 
with power to vote for all officers in all elections ex¬ 
cept those specifically provided for and controlled by 
the constitution. 

Illinois Indiana 

Ohio North Dakota 

cxwW.rkansas allows women to vote in primary elec- 

SCHOOL SUFFRAGE. 

Nineteen states give women some form of munici¬ 
pal or school suffrage with power to vote upon various 
questions pertaining to taxation and the issuance of 
bonds. These are: 

Connecticut 
Delaware 
Massachusetts 
New Jersey 
Rhode Island 
South Dakota 
Nebraska 
New Mexico 
Oklahoma 
Louisiana 

CITIZENSHIP AND SUFFRAGE. 

Thirty-nine states require that a voter be a citizen 
of the United States. 


Mississippi 

Minnesota 

Iowa 

Wisconsin 

Michigan 

Kentucky 

New York 

Vermont 

New Hampshire 


26 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


The following enfranchise aliens upon ‘declaration 
of intention’: 

Alabama 
Arkansas 
Indiana 
Kansas 
Missouri 

*Must declare one year before election. 

RESIDENCE QUALIFICATIONS. 

Seven states require two years residence. 

Twenty-eight states require one years residence. 

Twelve states require six months residence. 

Maine requires three months residence. 

DISFRANCHISED CLASSES. 

Most states disqualify lunatics, idiots and felons 
and some include vagrants, bribers, bigamists and 
paupers. The Indiana constitution provides only that 
the general assembly shall have power to disfranchise 
‘any person convicted of an infamous crime.’ 


PROHIBIT SALARY INCREASE. 

The constitution does not contain any general 
prohibition of increase or decrease of salaries during 
term. The Governor’s salary can neither be increased 
nor decreased, judges’ salaries cannot be diminished, 
and the General Assembly is prohibited from increas¬ 
ing the salary of members during the session. 

Since these provisions do not apply to the great 
body of state and local officers, the custom has be¬ 
come quite common for classes of officers to main¬ 
tain unseemly lobbies at every session of the legis¬ 
lature for the purpose of procuring general increases 
of salaries. This has become a great nuisance as well 
as a great expense. 

The new constitution should contain an absolute 
and general prohibition of increase or decrease of 
salary of any public official during the term for which 
he shall have been elected or appointed. 


Nebraska 
^Oregon 
South Dakota 
Texas 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


27 


CITY GOVERNMENT. 


In-1850 we had no cities. The modern era of city 
building in this new western world had not begun 
and it was not even anticipated in the most venture¬ 
some prophecy. 

Our largest town in Indiana was New Albany with 
7,786 inhabitants. Madison was second with 7,714, 
Indianapolis had 7,686. There were only nine towns 
in the state that had more than 2,000 inhabitants. Con¬ 
sequently when our constitution was written the prob¬ 
lem of city government was not taken into account at 
all. Our constitution contains no provision whatever 
for city government. It contains not even the word 
“city”. It does not contain the word “municipality”. 
The expression, “municipal corporation” is used once 
in Art. XIII. It was placed there in 1881 by the only 
amendment of any consequence that w r as ever made to 
our constitution. It is the 2 per cent debt limit. 

This provision, whatever its original intention, has 
certainly not had the effect of helping our cities to 
improve their government so that they might adopt a 
modern program to meet modern needs. It has had 
exactly the contrary result and has seriously limited 
and restricted the powers and opportunities of oui 
growing cities. 

The Constitution contains the word “town” many 
times. Vincennes is referred to by name as the “town 
of Vincennes”. Judged by all modern standards ot 
municipal government, it may be truthfully said that 
we have a “little old town” constitution. 

An idea of the relative importance of city govern¬ 
ment today may be had by considering the population 
of our cities, the cost of government, the proportion 
of city taxes to the taxes of other units of government 
and the share of the cities in the bonded indebtedness 
of government. 


POPULATION. 

The estimated population of the United States is 
103,000,000. More than half live in towns and cities 
and nearly one-half in the cities of more than 8,000 peo¬ 
ple. One-tenth of the population of the United States 


28 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


is in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. One-tenth 
of the population of Indiana is in Indianapolis. 

COST OF GOVERNMENT. 

The expense of all units of government in the 
United States annually is about three billion dollars. 
This includes federal, state, county, town and city gov¬ 
ernment. The federal government requires about one- 
third of this amount, the states, counties and town¬ 
ships about one-eighth and the towns and cities over 
$1,600,000,000 or more than one-half of the entire reve¬ 
nues of the country. 

INDIANAPOLIS TAXES. 

Take Indianapolis as an example. The tax levy 
for all purposes of government in Indianapolis in 1915 
was $2.53 on $100 of assessed value. This tax was 
distributed as follows: 

40.1 cents for state 
34.15 cents for county 

.04 cents for township and road 
1.76.75 cents for city. 

Thus 70 per cent of the taxes which we pay in In¬ 
dianapolis go directly to the city of Indianapolis, to 
say nothing of special assessments for sidewalks, sew¬ 
ers, parks, etc., which are entirely outside of the gen¬ 
eral tax levy. 

BONDED INDEBTEDNESS. 

The total bonded indebtedness of government in 
the United States covering all units amounts to $4,- 
850,000,000. Of this, three billion dollars, or 61 per 
cent, is carried by the cities, towns and villages. In¬ 
diana cities bear their proper proportion. 

INDIANA CITIES TODAY. 

In 1910 we had in Indiana eighty-eight cities of 
more than 2,500 inhabitants and 382 cities and towns 
of less than 2,500 inhabitants. Our cities and towns in 
1910 included 53.5 per cent of the entire population of 
Indiana while the rural population was 46.5 per cent. 
Ten years before, 1900, the percentages were reversed. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 29 

1 he rural territory included 55.2 per cent and the 
towns and cities only 44.8 per cent. From 1900 to 
1910 our city population increased 30.5 per cent while 
our rural population decreased 5.5 per cent. This 
movement from country to city is increasing every 
year and the problems of the city are rapidly becom¬ 
ing more intense and complicated. 

OUR BAD CITY GOVERNMENT. 

James Bryce declared that the “most conspicuous 
failure in American government has been in the 
cities.” Certainly this is true of Indiana. We know 
that within the last few years the mayor, chief of 
police and other leading officials of many of the larger 
cities of Indiana, have been indicted and several have 
been convicted. City taxes are exceedingly high. Im¬ 
provements have not been made to keep pace with the 
needs. General dissatisfaction has prevailed and fre¬ 
quent changes in administration have taken place. 
This condition has been so general and so long con¬ 
tinued that we have come to a realization of the fact 
that the blame does not rest entirely, nor even largely, 
upon the particular men who happen to hold the of¬ 
fices. We have found that the fault goes back of the 
men who are in office, back to the system which 
prevails. 

Our cities are ruled by a purely political system and 
the worst kind of a political system at that. State and 
national politics, confused by the corrupting influence 
of powerful special interests in cities, have operated 
to the general discredit of our city government. The 
system has naturally resulted in inefficiency, waste, 
disorganization, poverty, corruption, disgrace, back¬ 
wardness and, above all, a discouraged and disheart¬ 
ened citizenship. 

LACK OF FREEDOM. 

The fundamental fault in the government of our 
cities has been due to this lack of freedom and the ex¬ 
treme need has been the need of home rule for cities 
whereby these growing communities, each one within 
itself, could adjust its administration to its own pecu¬ 
liar needs. 

This has not been possible under our state consti- 


30 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


tution since our constitution makes no provision what¬ 
ever for modern city government. It is natural that 
the main control of our cities has gone by default back 
to the legislature and so our cities are governed, or 
controlled, or provided for by general laws. 

Our cities are utterly dependent, creatures with¬ 
out freedom. It has been said that the only things in 
Indiana that are entirely without rights are wild 
beasts, outlaws and cities. 

The only provision in the original constitution 
which by construction or interpretation could be held 
to apply to cities is in section 13 of the article on Cor¬ 
porations. There are fourteen sections in this article, 
thirteen of which apply directly to banks and bank¬ 
ing. Section 13 provides: 

Corporations, other than banking, shall not be created by 
special act, but may be formed under general laws. 

Thus we have cities defined in Indiana. They are 
“corporations other than banking”. That is what In¬ 
dianapolis is—a “corporation other than Banking” and 
subject to general control by state legislatures, through 
general laws. 

INDIANAPOLIS—A STATE BURDEN.n 

At every session of the legislature we see our cities 
humbly seeking relief at the hands of the General As¬ 
sembly. The legislature meets in Indianapolis, where 
the State House happens to be, and a great part of its 
time and trouble is taken with the internal affairs of 
Indianapolis and it is a question whether Indianapolis 
has gotten as much good as evil out of the meetings of 
the legislature. We have simply done the best we 
could. The very charter of Indianapolis is merely an 
act or a series of acts or amendments passed by state 
legislatures of Indiana. It has never been satisfac¬ 
tory and we have never gotten complete satisfaction 
in any important particular from any legislature. 

SESSION OF 1915. 

In the legislature of 1915 there was a general and 
combined effort made in the city of Indianapolis to 
get some relief. A joint committee of the Chamber of 
Commerce and Board of Trade, five members from 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


31 


each body, prepared a special report and appeal to the 
Indiana Legislature which contained the following un¬ 
qualified declaration: 

“Without reflection or censure upon any mayor or any in¬ 
dividual member of the common council of the city of Indian¬ 
apolis, now or in the past, elected under our present city 
charter, we find, as a matter of common knowledge and ob¬ 
servation, that almost from the date of the adoption of the 
now existing form of our city government, there has been 
more or less conflict between the mayor and common council 
of Indianapolis, regarding matters of vital public policy, 
which conflict, at times, has been so stubbornly waged and 
emphasized as to become a positive menace and detriment 
to the best interests of our city. With these facts so clearly 
before us, we do not hesitate to state that we believe THAT 
OUR PRESENT FORM OF CITY GOVERNMENT HAS 
FAILED, in its practical operation, to give our city the best 
and most efficient methods of business management, and 
especially does this observation apply to its financial affairs, 
in all their relations.” 

During that session there were two quite important 
measures pending concerning the city of Indianapolis 
both of which were vigorously opposed, as was proved 
i T J)Sh§. v “Ori’e oi teem was known'as the Finance Board 
Bill—a proposal to provide an entirely new financial 
body for the city upon recommendation of the mayor. 
It was the result of a “scrap” or condition of cross 
purposes, between the mayor and the council. The 
other was the Indianapolis Police Court Bill a pro¬ 
posal to create an additional police court for the city 
which was the result of a “scrap or a condition of 
cross purposes, between the police judge and the po¬ 
lice department. 

Neither of these were state matters. They did not 
concern anybody but the people of Indianapolis yet 
they were made subjects of state policy and state con¬ 
cern, trouble and expense. Notwithstanding the vig¬ 
orous opposition of the people of Indianapolis, these 
measures would have been foisted on the city if it 
had not been for the fact that a state “political ma¬ 
chine went to the scrap pile in the house, as declared 
on the floor by a leading majority member. Little or 
no really good legislation was procured for Indianapo¬ 
lis in that legislature and indeed the people of Indian¬ 
apolis heaved a sigh of relief when the legislature ad¬ 
journed with nothing done. 


32 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


SESSION OF 1917. 

In the last legislative session, Indianapolis and 
many sub-divisions, thereof, presented many special 
requests and upon motion of the Committee on Mu¬ 
nicipal Legislation and Franchises, our Chamber of 
Commerce made recommendations to the legislature 
concerning some changes in our charter in which they 
presented the following statement: 

'‘While we recognize that the present city charter of In¬ 
dianapolis has some claims to public favor in many of its 
provisions, we are not blind to the fact that it has failed to 
bring to our citizens the benefits of good government to the 
extent expected by its early advocates for the reason that 
too often partisan political control has submerged the spirit 
of the charter, rendering its clearly expressed and well in¬ 
tended provisions wholly ineffective and leaving the people 
without adequate remedy. Among the failures under the 
existing city charter of Indianapolis, we particularly call 
attention to what we consider three grave defects, namely: 

1. The necessity of a modern budget system of estimates 
and expenditures of money for various city uses and pur¬ 
poses. 

civil service empidyrnrrii 1 ' v ti'S** T fi<5 1 iW f qr/\5 > rv£i\t qjf, the classified 
but which has become an absolute nullity through partisan 
political practices to the extent that efficient service has 
been destroyed. 

3. The want of non-partisan elections to center the minds 
of the voters more upon the character and qualifications of 
the candidates and what they stand for than upon party ad¬ 
vantage. 

Eut nothing of any consequence was done in refer¬ 
ence to charter changes. However, this last legisla¬ 
ture did pass one act of considerable importance to the 
city of Indianapolis which suggests the method of 
fictitious evasion whereby the legislature really does 
govern our cities by special act contrary to the consti¬ 
tution and evades and defeats some of the purposes ot 
the 2 per cent debt limit provided in article XIII. 

OUR CONSTITUTIONAL DEBT LIMIT. 

Article XIII, an amendment adopted in 1881, pro¬ 
vides as follows: 

"No political or municipal corporation in this state shall 
ever become indebted, in any manner or for any purpose, to 
any amount, in the aggregate exceeding two per centum on 
the value oi taxable property within such corporation, to be 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


33 


asccitained by the last assessment for state and county taxes, 
previous to the incurring of such indebtedness, and all bonds 
or obligations, in excess of such amount, given by such cor¬ 
porations, shall be void: Provided, That in time of war, 
foreign invasion, or other great public calamity, on petition 
of a majority of the property owners, in number and value, 
within the limits of such corporation, the public authorities, 
in their discretion, may incur obligations necessary for the 
public protection and defense, to such an amount as may 
be requested in such petition.” 

I his debt limit results in handicapping improve¬ 
ment that is badly needed in the cities in many ways. 
For example, it stands as an almost insuperable ob¬ 
stacle in most of our cities to any successful effort on 
the part of the cities to take over their public utilities. 
It does not operate as a protection of the people be¬ 
cause special devices have been found from time to 
„ time to evade its .provisions ; some of them for evil pur¬ 
poses as well as for good purposes. 

A recent example of evasion is found in the case of 
the- sewage disposal problem of Indianapolis. This 
case is not referred to for the purpose of commenting 
in any way upon the merits of the measure passed by 
the last legislature, but merely as an illustration of the 
manner in which the constitutional debt limit is 
evaded. 

It might be said in passing also that it would be 
practically impossible to evade the 2 per cent, debt 
limit in many of our cities for the purpose of giving 
the people oi any particular city a larger control over 
public utilities unless the utilities themselves should 
cheerfully acquiesce. They don’t usually do this and 
they are exceedingly strong in state politics. They 
seem to be well satisfied with the State Utility 
Commission. 


SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

The Indianapolis Sewage Disposal Bill which was 
passed by the last legislature enables Indianapolis to 
adopt a new method of disposing of its sewage with¬ 
out exceeding the 2 per cent debt limit. The legisla¬ 
ture had to pass a law which applied only to Indian¬ 
apolis and which makes of this city a separate taxing 
district for the purpose of providing for a modern sew¬ 
age disposal system. 


34 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


FARCE OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEBT LIMIT. 

Thus this 2 per cent debt limit is entirely avoided 
in many ways. The civil city can bond itself up to 
2 per cent of the assessed valuation of all property in 
the city. The school city can also bond itself up to 2 
per cent of the assessed valuation of all property in 
the city. And now by this last act the city, as a sew¬ 
age and taxing district, can bond itself up to 2 per 
cent of the assessed valuation. Likewise the health 
board has separate taxing powers in this district. It 
all covers the same identical property, the same terri¬ 
tory, the same people,—see what a farce this 2 per 
cent debt limit really is. 

There is no occasion for it, anyhow. It simply 
limits the powers of the city to do things which the 
people of the city may want to do and which they are 
willing to pay for. Its main purpose and its main 
effect at this time is to prevent this city and many 
of our cities from taking over, owning and operating 
their public service corporations. This ought to be 
possible any time that the people want to do it and it 
ought not to be prevented by an arbitrary constitu¬ 
tional limit or by a backward system of state political 
regulation. 

MUNCIE. 

The following editorial comment in the Muncie 
Post on March 30, 1917, will be self-explanatory: 

It is only necessary to point out one weakness of the 
present state constitution to demonstrate the necessity of a 
revision. The constitution of Indiana provides that the 
bonded indebtedness of cities shall be limited to two per cent 
of their total assessed valuation. The public service corpora¬ 
tions doing business in Indiana would no doubt be pleased to 
have that section of the constitution remain intact, but it is 
to the interest of the people of the state to see that the limit is 
raised—possibly to ten per cent. 

The bonded indebtedness of the various public service 
corporations doing business in Muncie amounts to probably 
five million dollars. The assessed valuation of the city of 
Muncie is in the neighborhood of twenty million, so it will 
be seen that the corporations carry a bonded indebtedness 
of approximately twenty-five per cent of the total valuation 
of the real and personal property of the city of Muncie. 

The two per cent limitation is an effectual bar against 
most cities in the state owning their own public utilities. If 
it were increased to ten per cent the old excuse, “we can’t 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


35 


do it because we are bonded up to the limit” could not be 
worked off on a long-suffering public. If a public service 
corporation, doing business in Muncie, can bond itself for an 
amount greater than its physical valuation, the city itself, 
with its great resources, ought to be able to stand behind 
bond issues representing one-tenth of its assets. 

The public should remember one thing, and that is that 
no matter how many bonds are issued by privately owned 
utilities, it is the public that is always called upon to pay 
the interest. The interest on these bonds, paid by private 
individuals, is concealed skillfully in monthly service bills or 
in transportation or freight charges, but the public pays every 
dollar of it. 

The new state constitution should break the shackles that 
have made the people of Indiana bond servants of every 
dinky corporation that is able to procure a franchise to 
supply them the necessities of life. By making it possible 
for the cities of the state to issue bonds sufficient to install 
and maintain all of their public utilities, the coming constitu¬ 
tional convention would render an inestimable service to the 
people of Indiana. 

It might be added that city government in Muncie 
during the past few years offers several suggestions as 
to needed municipal reform. 

FORT WAYNE. 

In the 1915 legislature there were some 12 or 13 
bills introduced that applied solely to Fort Wayne, 
and public officials and influential citizens of Fort 
Wayne spent a great deal of time trying to lobby 
them through. Some of them became state laws hav¬ 
ing special application only to Fort Wayne. They 
dealt with such matters as the building of a conven¬ 
tion hall, the improvement of a park, a bridge, a 
sewage system, etc. These were important Fort 
Wayne matters, but were they of general importance 
to the State of Indiana? 

GARY. 

We have a most notable example of the unsuita¬ 
bility of our present constitution to our present con¬ 
ditions of city government in the case of Gary, the 
Steel City. Within ten years a great, new wonder 
city has sprung into being on a spot which but a 
decade ago was a sandy waste on the shores of Lake 
Michigan. The system of government provided by 
our constitution for the towns and villages of 1851 
is as absolutely foreign and unsuited to the spirit, the 


36 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


needs and the potentialities of Gary as would be the 
government of Gomorrah to the New Jerusalem. 

The editor of the Gary Evening Post, who is also 
postmaster of Gary, recently published the following 
statements concerning Gary: 

“Because of the rapid growth which developed many new 
and unheard of problems, there have been many things that 
Gary has needed but which she could not have on account of 
the lack of home rule under our present constitution. 

“Gary has been a fighter in the legislature since her birth 
simply to secure the things she ought to have as a natural 
right, if there is such a thing. She has spent money, pati¬ 
ence and time for rights she has failed to secure as often as 
she has won. 

“During the city’s entire existence the problem of ‘getting 
around’ the constitution has had to be solved in all parts of 
the city’s affairs that progress might not be impeded.’’ 

PERU. 

The legislature of 1915 passed a flood law for Peru 
longer than our constitution, containing 40 pages and 
65 articles. It is a state law of Indiana, but applies 
only to Peru. The people of Peru do not believe that 
it provides flood protection for them. It has been de¬ 
nounced in mass meeting's and some 90 per cent of 
the voters and tax payers have signed protests against 
it. It seems to be a dead letter. It is a state law gen¬ 
eral in its terms, but by fictitious indirection has only a 
special and local application. 

SAME SITUATION IN OTHER CITIES. 

What has been stated here in reference to Indian¬ 
apolis, Port Wayne, Muncie, Gary and Peru, is true 
generally of most of the cities of Indiana, and espe¬ 
cially those that have made rapid growth and have 
tried to make improvements keep pace with their 
growth. Such cities as Rushville and Connersville 
have had to get around the law to beat the 2 per cent 
constitutional restriction in order to improve their 
streets and keep up their schools. 

EVIL OF SPECIAL LEGISLATION. 

Thus it happens that we have gotten back to the 
great and burdensome evil of local and special legis¬ 
lation which was the principal fault of the old Consti- 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


37 


tution of 1816, and one of the main causes, if not THE 
main cause, that led to the Constitutional Convention 
of 1850-51. The evil of special legislation has been 
revived and aggravated because of the great growth 
of our cities and our lack of provision for them. It 
was given significant expression by Hon. Charles H. 
Bedwell, Speaker of the House of Representatives in 
the legislature of 1915. On assuming the office of 
Speaker, Mr. Bedwell said in part: 

“I cannot help but feel that we have in the past had too 
much local legislation, that is of no benefit to the state as a 
whole, and that results in more harm than good. Some 
prominent individual in some community has had some un¬ 
pleasant experiences, often the most trivial in character, and 
for the purpose of righting his imaginary wrong he comes 
to the legislature asking for relief. A law is passed affecting 
the entire state, conditions in other communities are different, 
the law is disobeyed and the legislature must bear the burden 
of censure because it has not acted wisely.” 


FEW LAWS OF STATE-WIDE CHARACTER. 

Notwithstanding that timely warning, the legisla¬ 
ture of 1915 wasted most of its time on local leMsla- 

o 

tion as all of its predecessors for the past decade or 
two have done. Of the 191 bills which became laws 
by act of that legislature, less than twenty-five of 
them could really be called state laws. The same 
thing is true of the legislature which has just ended. 
Mr. John A. Lapp, director of the Legislative Bu¬ 
reau of Information, recently made this statement: 

The session just closed has been made memorable by the 
passage of three important acts—the constitutional conven¬ 
tion act, the prohibition act and the woman’s suffrage act. 
The passage of these acts marks an epoch in Indiana’s his¬ 
tory. They put us a long step forward along the road of 
progress. Aside from these acts and a mutilated highway 
commission act, practically no laws of general importance 
were passed. An important park act and a sewage disposal 
act apply to the city of Indianapolis. These are about all 
that resulted from the work of the session. 

This legislature passed 181 laws. Outside of the 
four or five mentioned, they were nearly all of them 
special and local acts pertaining to certain cities or 
certain townships or certain special things or per¬ 
sons. Surely this is a “latch string system" of hand¬ 
ling affairs. It is a restriction and a burden upon our 


38 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


cities and a serious interference with the real purpose 
of state legislation. Our legislatures are composed of 
150 men, representing 92 counties, 88 cities and 382 
towns and villages and a strictly rural population of 
a million and a half. The legislature should give its 
time to the affairs of the State of Indiana rather than 
to the conflicting local interests of individual cities 
and communities. 

HOME RULE FOR CITIES. 

It must be clear that so far as the constitution is 
concerned, the all important and sufficient step is 
simply to provide complete home rule for cities. Home 
rule simply means freedom for the city. It means the 
right and power in the people of the city who live 
inside the corporation—bear its burdens and share its 
privileges—to write their own charter for their own 
local self-government and to change it when and how 
they will. The city should, of course, be subject to 
general state government in all matters that are not 
local in their nature; but the city should be supreme 
as to all matters that affect solely and directly its 
own inhabitants. In other words, the city should be 
an almost independent agency like the state and na¬ 
tion. It should be free to frame and alter its form 
of government, to determine the number of officials 
and how they shall be nominated and elected and to 
engage in any business activity that its people desire. 
It should decide as to how it shall secure its revenues 
and how it shall spend them, as to its own indebted¬ 
ness and the kind of taxes to be levied. 

An example of constitutional home rule provisions 
is seen in the Constitution of Ohio: 

ARTICLE XVIII. 

Sec. 2. Municipalities shall have authority to exercise 
all powers of local self-government and to adopt and enforce 
within their limits such local police, sanitary and other 
similar regulations, as are not in conflict with general laws. 
(Adopted September 3, 1912.) 

Sec. 4. Any municipality may frame and adopt or amend 
a charter for its government and may, subject to the pro¬ 
visions of section 3 of this article, exercise thereunder all 
powers of local self-government. (Adopted September 3, 

1912.) 

% 

Sec. 8. The legislative authority of any city or village 


i 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 39 

may be a two-thirds vote of its members, and upon petition 
of ten per centum of the electors shall forthwith, provide 
by ordinance for the submission to the electors, of the ques¬ 
tion, “Shall a commission be chosen to frame a charter.” 
The ordinance providing for the submission of such question 
shall require that it be submitted to the electors at the next 
regular municipal election if one shall occur not less than 
sixty nor more than one hundred and twenty days after its 
passage; otherwise it shall provide for the submission of the 
question at a special election to be called and held within 
the time aforesaid. The ballot containing such question shall 
bear no party designation and provision shall be made there¬ 
on for the election from the municipality at large of fifteen 
electors who shall constitute a commission to frame a 
charter; provided that a majority of the electors voting on 
such question shall have voted in the affirmative. Any 
charter so framed shall be submitted to the electors of the 
municipality at an election to be held at a time fixed by the 
charter commission and within one year from the date of its 
election, provision for which shall be made by the legislative 
authority of the municipality in so far as not prescribed by 
general law. Not less than thirty days prior to such election 
the clerk of the municipality shall mail a copy of the proposed 
charter to each elector whose name appears upon the poll 
or registration books of the last regular or general election 
held therein. If such proposed charter is approved by a 
majority of the electors voting thereon it shall become the 
charter of such municipality at the time fixed therein. 
(Adopted September 3, 1912.) 


HOME RULE BASIS OF WORLD PROGRESS IN 

CITIES. 


Home rule is the system whereby all marked 
municipal progress throughout the world has been 
made in modern times'. Home rule prevails uni¬ 
versally throughout the civilized world outside the 
United States, Russia and Turkey. Germany adopted 
home rule 110 years ago, and it became in an early 
day the basis of that great efficiency which is so much 
admired in German cities. England adopted it 82 
years ago and all civilized countries of the Eastern 
continent have had it in force for the past fifty years. 
Home rule has been granted by constitutional pro¬ 
vision in 12 states of the American Union during the 
past ten years. These states are as follows: 


Arizona 

California 

Colorado 

Michigan 


Nebraska 


Ohio 

Oklahoma 

Oregon 




40 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Minnesota Texas 

Missouri W ash i n gt o n 

Certainly the people of Indiana will demand a fair 
submission of modern home rule provision for cities 
in the revision of our constitution. 

There has be^n much confusion as to the exact re¬ 
lation which proposed modern forms of city govern¬ 
ment such as the Commission Form or City Manager 
Plan bear to the subject of constitutional revision. It 
should be thoroughly understood that the Constitu¬ 
tional Convention will certainly take no action as to 
any of these forms of city government. The making 
of charters or even outlining direct plans for city gov¬ 
ernment is not a constitutional function. The only 
function of the constitution in reference to municipal 
government will be to provide the basic procedure 
whereby the people of the cities themselves, and the 
people of each particular city, may provide themselves 
with charters for their own local government. It may 
be of interest, however, to suggest briefly the general 
character and scope of the principal forms of munici¬ 
pal government today. 

These may be presented under four general heads. 

I. Mayor and Council or Federal Plan. 

II. Commission Form. 

III. City Manager Plan. 

IV. Business or World System. 

MAYOR AND COUNCIL OR FEDERAL PLAN. 

Briefly defined, the Mayor and Council system is 
simply our present system in Indiana where we have 
divided responsibility between the departments and 
the main officers elected by the people in partisan 
elections. This same system with officers elected on 
non-partisan tickets is sometimes known as the Fed¬ 
eral plan. This plan does not prevail in any civilized 
country today outside of the United States. 

COMMISSION FORM. 

The entire government under this plan consists of 
five commissioners who occupy the managing offices. 
There is no Council. The commissioners are elected 
by non-partisan ballot. T hey select from among them- 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


41 


selves a head for each of the five departments of city 
government. The head of the department of Public 
Affairs is called Mayor. This plan provides for the 
initiative, the referendum and the recall as safeguards. 
I he commissioners hold office for two or four years 
and it is usually customary to replace commissioners 
with five new men at every election. This plan has 
been adopted in some four hundred cities, large and 
small, in thirty-nine states. It was first attempted 
in Galveston after the terrible flood of 1901. 

CITY MANAGER PLAN. 

This plan is a step in advance of the commission 
plan. It is sometimes called the Commission Man¬ 
ager Plan. Commissioners are elected in the same 
manner as under the commission plan with the new 
and additional feature added that these commissioners 
select from outside their own ranks and often from 
outside the city and even outside the state a city 
manager who must have expert qualifications for the 
position. This plan was first put into notable opera¬ 
tion in the City of Dayton, Ohio, in 1914. During" the 
past four years, forty-one American cities and towns 
have adopted the commission-manager form of gov¬ 
ernment. 

BUSINESS OR WORLD SYSTEM. 

This system is but little known as yet in the United 
States but it is universal in the large cities of civilized 
countries outside of the United States. The city ad¬ 
ministration, under this system, is made up of the 
following parts: 

First—A Board of Councilors from ten to fifty in 
number and even more according to the size of the 
city. 

Second—A Mayor, and in large cities a first and 
second Mayor. 

Third—A Board of Administration made up of the 
heads of departments of the city government varying 
in number from three to as high as fifteen according 
to the size and requirements of the city. 

The people elect the Councilors by districts or 
wards, three from each district. Political parties are 
entirely eliminated. One-third of the Councilors are 


42 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


subject to election every year. They serve without pay 
and they are the only officials elected by the people. 
The Councilors select a Mayor from outside their own 
ranks. They seek a professional expert for this pe¬ 
culiar form of service wherever he may be found. 
The Councilors select the heads for the several de¬ 
partments, each upon merit. Only expert men arc 
considered and they are retained as long as they give 
satisfactory service. The appointed heads of depart¬ 
ments with the Mayor comprise the Board of Admin¬ 
istration which manages the city’s affairs. Each head 
of department makes all appointments in his depart¬ 
ment under civil service rules. All officials are well 
paid and all employment is permanent, or during good 
behavior. This has been found to be the most com¬ 
plete method yet devised to eliminate politics from 
city management and to apply to cities the perfect 
freedom and natural efficiency that is applied every¬ 
where to private business corporations. Under this 
system, the most absolute of monarchies, like Ger¬ 
many, have the most perfect democracy in cities. 

THE GOVERNMENT OF DAYTON. 

Perhaps the most noted example of modern city 
government in the United States is found in Dayton, 
Ohio. 

DAYTON MAKES IT GO. 

The city which has made the commission-manager plan 
famous is Dayton, Ohio. When the first Dayton commis¬ 
sioners took office in 1914 they realized that the success of 
the new government depended largely upon the personality 
and equipment of the man whom they would select to fill the 
city managership. No one in Dayton seemed to fill the bill 
in every particular. There were plenty of able men in the 
town, but most of them had been too closely identified with 
local affairs or were unavailable for some other reason. 

The job was offered first to Colonel Goethals, the builder 
of the Panama Canal, at $25,000 a year. He declined. 

The commission then discovered H. M. Waite, the city 
engineer of Cincinnati, and right hand man of young Mayor 
Hunt, whose brilliant reform administration there was just 
closing. V aite had had a long and important engineering 
experience in private corporations. He refused an offer of 
$15,000 a year from a private corporation and took the Day- 
ton managership. 

It is true, to begin with, that the tax rate was increased 
from $12.80 per $1,000 in 1913 to $14.40 in 1914, but this in- 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


43 


crease represents in part the payment of a deficit from the 
old administrations ($50,000 paid off in 1914). The new ad¬ 
ministration also abandoned the policy of paying for running 
expenses out of bond issues. 

In 1914 $33,000 was saved in the cost of supplies by the 
inti oduction of new purchasing methods—savings of from 
ten per cent to two hundred per cent on different items. 

Public Health: In 1913 nine men made 13,662 inspections; 
in 1914, four men made 22,257. Infant mortality rate was 
reduced from 124.0 pe.r thousand in 1913 to 87.2 per thou¬ 
sand in 1915. 

Public Morals: The Red-light district has been abolished. 

Garbage Removal: The cost of collections was reduced 
from $2.40 per ton in 1913 to $1.82 in 1914 and $1.60 in 1915. 

Public Welfare: A new legal aid bureau, costing about 
$625 per year has collected thousands of dollars for hundreds 
of defrauded poor. Loan sharks have been driven out of 
town. 

Labor: The eight-hour day has replaced the ten-hour 
day in all departments. 

With all these new services, the tax rate was reduced 
from $14.40 in 1914 to $13.60 in 1915 and $13.40 in 1916. 
(From publication by National Short Ballot Association.) 

The following are the present commission manager 
cities of the United States: 

CITIES UNDER COMMISSION-MANAGER PLAN. 


Corrected to January 1, 1917. 


City 

Population 

Date of Adoption 

Sumter, S. C. 

_ 8,109 

June 

12, 1912 

Hickory, N. C. 

_ 3,716 

April, 

1913 

Morganton, N. C. 

_ __ 2,712 

April, 

1913 

Dayton, Ohio 

_116,577 

Aug. 

12, 1913 

Springfield, Ohio 

_ _ _ 46,921 

August 

26, 1913 

Phoenix, Ariz. 

_ 11,134 

October 

10, 1913 

La Grande, Ore. 

_ 4,843 

October 

1, 1913 

Amarillo, Texas 

_ 9,957 

Nov. 

18, 1913 

Cadillac, Mich. 

_ 8,375 

Dec. 

9, 1913 

Manistee, Mich. 

_ 12,381 

Dec. 

17, 1913 

Montrose, Colo. - 

_ 3,252 


1914 

Taylor, Texas 

_ 5,314 

April 

6, 1914 

Denton, Texas 

_ 4,732 

April 

4, 1914 

Collinsville, Okla. 

_ 1,324 

June 

9, 1914 

Lakeland, Fla. __ - 

_ 3,719 


1914 

Big Rapids, Mich. _ . 

_ 4,519 

February 

2, 1914 

Sandusky, Ohio 

_ 19,989 

July 

28, 1914 

Ashtabula, Ohio 

_ 18,266 

Nov. 

3, 1914 

Niagara Falls, N. Y. 

_ 30,445 

Nov. 

3, 1914 

Jackson, Mich. 

_ 31,433 

Nov. 

3, 1914 

Sherman, Texas 

_ __ 12,412 

March 

6, 1915 

Bakersfield, Texas 

_ 12,727 


1915 

Yoakum, Texas 

_ 4,657 


1915 

























44 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


City 

Population 

Date of Adoption 

Tyler, Texas __ 

_ 10,400 

April 

6, 1915 

Newburgh, N. Y.- 

27,805 

May 

1, 1915 

Wheeling, W. Va. 

_ 41.641 

May 

27, 1915 

St. Augustine, Fla. 

_ 5,494 


1915 

Westerville, Ohio 

_ 1,903 


1915 

Elizabeth City, N. C. 

_ 8,412 


1915 

Webster City, Iowa 

_ 5,208 

August 

30, 1915 

San Jose, Cal. 

_ 28,946 


1915 

Alpena, Mich. 

_ 12,706 


1915 

Santa Barbara, Cal. 

11,659 

Sept. 

5, 1915 

San Angelo, Texas 

_ 10,321 

August 

3, 1915 

Watertown, N. Y. 

_ 26,730 

Nov. 

2, 1915 

Portsmouth, Va. 

_ 33,190 

Nov. 

2, 1915 

Albion, Mich. 

_ 5,833 

Nov. 

9, 1915 

Brownsville, Texas 

_ 10,517 

January 

1, 1916 

Petoskey, Mich. 

_ 4,778 



East Cleveland, Ohio 

_ 9,179 

January 

1, 1918 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 

112,571 

July 

1, 1917 


(From Publication by National Short Ballot Organization.) 


EDUCATION. 

The most responsible position in the public school 
system of Indiana is a political job. It is made so by 
an outgrown provision of the constitution. 

The General Assembly shall provide for the election, by 
the voters of the State, of a State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, who shall hold his office for two years, and 
whose duties and compensation shall be prescribed by law. 
Art. VIII, Sec. 8. 

This provision establishes two conditions which 
can not be changed by legislation, to wit: the choice of 
the superintendent by party politics and the limitation 
of tenure to two years. 

The party nomination and election of the state su¬ 
perintendent every two years makes this office inevi¬ 
tably a part of the machinery of state politics and 
keeps alive the virus which to a certain degree inocu¬ 
lates the entire school system. It is not necessary to 
trace the ramification of this virus into every vital part 
of our school life. Suffice it to say, every school man 
in Indiana knows it ramifies. 

It is not strange that such a provision was adopted 
in 1851. The state supervision of education in Indiana 
was of such incidental importance that it had been at- 






















AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


45 


tended to by the state treasurer, ex-officio. The very 
question of maintaining - a free public school system 
was a political issue and more than half the counties 
had voted against free schools. The system was so 
incomplete and disorganized that it was impossible to 
determine the total number of schools and pupils. 

When the state superintendent’s office was created 
by the constitution of 1851, the salary was fixed by 
legislation at $1,300 a year and the superintendent was 
to “receive a sum not to exceed $500 a year for travel¬ 
ing, postage, stationery and other expenses, he was 
also authorized to employ a clerk ‘if the business of 

the office required it, at a salary of $2 per day not more 
than six months each year.’ ” 

The importance and magnitude of the duties, re¬ 
sponsibilities and powers of this office have increased 
almost beyond estimate. The salary at this time is 
$5,000 per year and the work of the office requires a 
regular force of fifteen members. The state superin¬ 
tendent is rightfully and in fact the head of the great 
educational system of Indiana which expends over 
$13,000,000 of the people’s money annually, employs 
some 19,000 teachers, and includes 8,376 schools and 
564,252 children. We have 526 commissioned and 132 
certified high schools, 123 non-commissioned and non- 
certified schools, and a rapidly increasing number of 
all-day, part-time and night vocational schools. 

But th§ manner in which we select this important 
officer and retain or release him has undergone no 
change unless it be in the marked increase of political 
and partisan bitterness of the contests by which one 
educator is elected and another defeated by grace of 
party politics every two years. 

This system is as badly out of joint with our edu¬ 
cational ideals today as Ichabod Crane would be in a 
vocational school. 

The leading educators of Indiana are a unit in 
thinking that the constitution should be revised so that 
this office may be taken entirely out of politics. The 
following inquiry was recently addressed to college 
presidents, superintendents and high school principals: 

Should the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 
Indiana continue as a political office filled by popular election 
every two years as now provided by our constitution? 


46 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


The replies were most emphatic and almost unani¬ 
mous to the effect that this system should be changed. 
The following are typical: 

W. E. Stone, President of Purdue University: 

There is a very pronounced opinion among educational 
people throughout the State that the office of the State 
Superintendent of Public Instruction should not be a political 
office. The duties and responsibilities of this post have bfeen 
increased enormously in recent years. It is one of the most 
important offices in the State with regard to the amount and 
the nature of its business. It calls for the services of an 
educated man of proven ability in a special field. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that such men under pres¬ 
ent conditions do not submit themselves to the vicissitudes 
and difficulties of a political campaign. From the very na¬ 
ture of the office its incumbent should continue in charge 
during good behaviour and satisfactory administration. I 
consider this one of the first things which a new constitu¬ 
tion should correct. 

Thomas C. Howe, President of Butler College: 

I certainly feel entirely convinced that the State Super¬ 
intendent of Public Instruction should not be a political 
office. I have been a delegate to several state conventions, 
and it seems to me that the present system is wholly un¬ 
worthy of a progressive state such as we in Indiana claim 
to be. I am not clear as to the best method of appointment, 
but certainly the present method is vicious. 

W. A. Millis, President Hanover College: 


I am greatly interested in your questions as to the 
selection of State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I 
can see no reason whatever for the plan in vogue, and many 
reasons why this official should be selected by a board of 
experts, or at least by a board which will be guided solely 
by educational reasons in exercise of the appointive power, 
and for an indefinite period. The general electorate is no 
more qualified to select Superintendent of Public Instruction 
than it is to select the President of the State University and 
his faculty. 

The present term of office is too long for an inefficient 
man, and too short for a man big enough for the office to 
accomplish his plans. I shall rejoice in the opportunity to 
work for this change in our constitution. 




M. H. Stuart, Principal Technical High School, In¬ 
dianapolis : 


The states, which are succeeding best with their educa¬ 
tional work, have the Superintendent’s office entirely out of 
politics. Indiana has been rather fortunate in the character 
of the men selected as State Superintendent, but this has 






AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


47 


been more a matter of chance than a logical outgrowth of 
the system. The sooner the office can be placed on a pro¬ 
fessional basis, the better for every teacher and every child 
in the public schools of the state. 

J. T. Giles, Superintendent Richmond Public 
Schools, Richmond: 

I am glad of this opportunity to express an opinion on 
the question of whether the office of State Superintendent 
of Public Instruction in Indiana should cease to be a political 
office filled by popular election. I have very strong convic¬ 
tions in the affirmative. The arguments in its favor seem 
to me unanswerable. 

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction should 
render expert service of a highly specialized character. It 
is impossible to secure such service by popular election. It 
can only be obtained by making the .position appointive by 
somebody as far removed from political influence as possible. 
The wisdom of this plan is shown by the example of those 
states where it has been tried. 

Advocating this change is no reflection on those who 
have held the office in Indiana. It is the system that is at 

fault. In 1851 no one knew what the functions of such an 

> 

official would be in 1916. Nor did they dream of the blight¬ 
ing influence that partisan politcs would come to exert on 
our educational system. This needed change in our state 
constitution is in itself a sufficient reason for calling a con¬ 
stitutional convention. Politics and education must be kept 
separate in Indiana. 

Robert J. Aley, president of the University of 
Maine, a former Hoosier educator and state superin¬ 
tendent of public instruction, 1909-1910, writes con¬ 
cerning the need of a change as follows: 

If the school work in Indiana is to maintain its high 
standing, the office of State Superintendent of Public In¬ 
struction must be placed upon the same basis as it is in othei 
progressive states. This means, of course, that it must be 
taken out of politics and the tenure made certain and perma¬ 
nent. 

Charles A. Greathouse, State Superintendent, 1910- 
1917, says: 

Replying to your letter bearing date of January 10th ask¬ 
ing my views as to the desirability of taking the office of 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction out of politics, I 
desire to say, in order that there may be a change in the 
manner of selecting the State Superintendent of Public In¬ 
struction it will be necessary to have a change in our con¬ 
stitution. I firmly believe, however, that greater efficiency 
and more certainty as to the tenure of office would be 
secured if this office be made appointive rather than elective. 


48 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


l doubt the wisdom of having the Governor make this 
appointment. This manner of selecting would not take it 
out of politics. The State Board of Education is the proper 
body in my judgment to make this selection. 

Horace Ellis, present State Superintendent, 1917, 
says: 

Certainly no one should desire a change in our education¬ 
al administrative policy merely for the sake of a change. Jt 
is my firm conviction that the New Constitutional Conven¬ 
tion can make some changes that will remove from admin¬ 
istrative circles some very disagreeable practices. I have 
great hopes that the wisdom of the delegates may be espe¬ 
cially exercised in the provision to select a Superintendent 
of Public Instruction—the next to the most important office 
in our state government. Caution must be exercised lest the 
change be made in the manner of selection that will con¬ 
serve sinister influences, but should-calm judgment prevail 
I am very sure much good will result from the action -of the 
convention. 

The Indiana State Teachers’ Association in 1916 
adopted a resolution as follows: 

We desire to go on record as favoring a constitutional 
amendment which will take the office of State Superintendent 
out of politics and make it possible to secure a permanent 
Commissioner of Education for the State. * * * The 

special and for the most part unrealized opportunities pre¬ 
sented by this office, coupled with the fact that progress in 
education is so largely dependent on following a well de¬ 
fined policy which may be continued for a long period of 
years, makes such a constitutional amendment not only 
highly desirable, but absolutely necessary, we believe, if the 
greatest amount of good is to come from this office and the 
work of our State Board of Education. 

METHODS OF SELECTION AND LENGTH OF 
TERM IN OTHER STATES. 

Very few states retain the system of popular bi¬ 
ennial elections. A large number of the older states 
have taken this office entirely out of politics by ap¬ 
pointment for long terms of continuous service. For 
example, the Vermont superintendent serves for an 
indefinite term of years; New Jersey for five years; 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota and Maryland, four 
years. 

The present incumbents in these states have been 
in office as follows: New Jersey, six years; Pennsyl¬ 
vania, twenty-four years; Minnesota, eight years, the 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 49 

superintendent having been chief assistant for a simi¬ 
lar period; Maryland, fifteen years. In Ohio and Ver¬ 
mont, the superintendent was only recently appointed. 

In these six states, and in many others it is not 
even required that the state superintendent, or com¬ 
missioner of education, as he is called in some states, 
be a citizen and resident of the state. 

When Woodrow Wilson was governor of New 
Jersey it was necessary for him to make an appoint¬ 
ment of a commissioner of education. He called Cal¬ 
vin Kendall from Indianapolis and gave him the ap¬ 
pointment. Mr. Kendall differed in politics from Gov¬ 
ernor Wilson but this was not considered. Mr. Ken¬ 
dall is at this time state commissioner of education 
in New Jersey, having served continuously since 1911. 


OTHER EDUCATIONAL REFORMS. 

With the head of the school system removed from 
politics by suitable constitutional provision, it may be 

expected that other far-reaching reforms along this 
same line may be accomplished outside of constitu¬ 
tional action. It is well known that our method of 
selecting the county superintendent of schools lacks 
much of being free from politics, and it is certainly 
true that our township trustee system is absurdly 
political. While it is not likely that a constitutional 
convention would deal directly with either of these 
matters, yet they are of sufficient importance to be 
worthy of consideration in connection with needed 
constitutional reforms which may be effected by the 
convention. 

Mr. Charles A. Prosser, for many years a leading 
Indiana educator and at this time director of Dun- 
woody Institute, Minneapolis, recently made the fol¬ 
lowing statement at an educational meeting in Indiana: 

The time will conic when the State of Indiana will no 
longer be willing to trust the administration of the affairs of 
the county schools of any county in this state to a man who 
has been selected on the basis of his personal popularity 
rather than his professional ability. I know by personal 
acquaintance some very excellent men who have served in 
the position of County Superintendent of Schools in this 
commonwealth and who have honored the position; but the 
policy is wrong, and you can no more lift up the county 
schools by that system of buying and selling, for that is 


50 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


what it has to be at the bottom, any more than you can lift 
yourself from the earth by pulling your own boot straps. 

I think one of the worst things in this country,—and I 
am speaking with full knowledge of all the splendid things 
that Indiana has done in education,—is the Township Trus¬ 
tee System of managing the schools of the country. I have 
been in every state in the Union, and I do not know of any¬ 
thing from coast to coast so pernicious in its possibilities, 
whatever it may be in its results. To take a man who has 
been elected in the heat of a political campaign and make 
him sole general and master over the destinies of worthy 
teachers within his township, to have those teachers year 
after year sit under the shadow of that election and wonder 
what is going to become of them and to be subject to the 
temptation over and over again, of taking sides one way 
or the other in order to hold their jobs,—that has nothing 
of promise in it. Now this is a problem upon which de¬ 
pends vocational education. We are talking in terms of so¬ 
cial uplift, we are talking in terms of human efficiency, we 
are talking in terms of the unfolding and development of 
human character and human skill and talent and possibilities. 

Unless we are willing to go clear down to the bottom 
and to deal with these things from a professional basis, 
each new effort will be in the last analysis nothing more 
than the “putting on” of another plaster over an already 
festering sore. 


THE SHORT BALLOT. 

The short ballot principle is: 

1. That only those offices should be elective which 
are important enough to attract (and deserve) public 
examination. 

2. That very few offices should be filled by election 
■ at one time, so as to permit adequate and unconfused 
examination of the candidates and so as to facilitate the 
free and intelligent making of original tickets by any 
voter for himself unaided by political specialists. 


SIMPLIFIES ELECTIONS. 

Perhaps the primary effort and purpose of the 
short ballot is to simplify elections and to make vot¬ 
ing more effective. It can be easily understood that 
when the voter undertakes to vote upon a great num¬ 
ber and variety of offices, some of them very import¬ 
ant and a vast number of them comparatively unim¬ 
portant, he cannot discriminate between them. He 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


51 


must follow some kind of “special guidance” which 
is the great opportunity and “function” of the party 
leader. 


OUR LONG BALLOT. 

The long ballot in the election of officers, state and 
local, such as now prevails to a very high degree in 
Indiana is generally recognized today as the “jungle 
of bad politics.” 

The voters of Center Township, Marion County, 
Indiana, in the general election of 1914, voted upon 
the following offices: 

United States Senator. 

Representative in Congress. 

Secretary of State. 

Auditor of State. 

Treasurer of State. 

Attorney General. 

Clerk of the Supreme Court. 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction 
State Geologist. 

Judge of the Supreme Court, 5th District. 

Two Judges of the Appellate Court, 1st District. 

Three Judges of the Appellate court, 2nd District. 

County Offices— 

Auditor. 

Treasurer. 

Clerk. 

Sheriff. 

Recorder. 

Surveyor. 

Coroner. 

Prosecuting Attorney. 

Judge of the Circuit Court. 

Five Judges of the Superior Court—Rooms 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 
Judge of the Criminal Court. 

Judge of the Probate Court. 

Judge of the Juvenile Court. 

County Assessor. 

Three County Commissioners. 

Seven Councilmen. 

Trustee of Center Township. 

Three Members of the Advisory Board of Center 
Township. 

Four Justices of the Peace, Center Township. 

Four Constables of Center Township. 

Assessor of Center Township. 

State Senator. 

Ten Representatives to the General Assembly. 


52 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


In 1916, the voters of Marion County voted upon 
the following: 

President of the United States. 

Two Presidential Electors at Large. 

One Presidential Elector for each of the thirteen districts. 

Two United States Senators. 

One United States Representative. 

Governor. 

Lieutenant Governor. 

Secretary of State. 

Auditor of State. 

Treasurer of State. 

Attorney General. 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

Chief of the Bureau of Statistics. 

Judge of the Supreme Court for Second District. 

Judge of the Supreme Court for Third District. 

Judge of the Appellate Court for First District. 

Judge of the Appellate Court for Second District. 

Reporter of the Supreme Court. 

Prosecuting Attorney—19th Judicial Circuit. 

Four State Senators. 

One Joint Senator for Hendricks, Hamilton & Marion 
Counties. 

Ten Representatives to the General Assembly. 

County Treasurer. 

County Sheriff. 

County Coroner. 

County Surveyor. 

County Commissioner—First District. 

County Commissioner—Second District. 

All told, we elect some 50 or more officers at every 
biennial election and our sample ballot is usually 
over six feet long and contains over 200 names. From 
this “mystic maze,” we must make our selections and 
cast our vote “in one minute.” 

Is it any wonder that this results in political con¬ 
fusion such as to offer the richest possible opportunity 
for bad politics through irresponsible and uncertain 
voting even by our best and most intelligent citizens? 

Under this system, the most intelligent and wide¬ 
awake voters are compelled in every election to cast 
their ballots for and against men with whom they 
have no acquaintance and of whose qualifications they 
have no right to judge. Ask the average voter if he 
knows for whom he voted two years ago for State 
Statistician, State Geologist, County Auditor, County 
Recorder, etc. While voters are not acquainted 
with the average run of officers whom they select, 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


53 


they can all become acquainted with the leading 
officers such as Governor, Mayor, etc., and they can 
vote with responsibility and with intelligence upon 
these leading officers. 

SHORT BALLOT IN STATE. 

The application of the short ballot to our state 
government would have us elect only the Governor 
and Lieutenant-Governor with possibly the Auditor. 
All the other officers should be appointed and as far 
as possible, the merit system should apply. 

It is out of the question for the people to become 
acquainted with and to be able to judge of the 
merits of these officers anyhow, and their interests 
will be better served by having them selected by a 
Governor who is responsible directly to the people 
and whom they have an opportunity to know well. 

Is there any reason why a State Statistician, a 
State Geologist, a State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, Supreme Court Reporter or even a State 
Treasurer, State Auditor or Attorney-General should 
be elected politically? Their duties are purely admin¬ 
istrative and are the same regardless of their politics, 
and they should be selected upon a merit basis. 

CONCENTRATION OF RESPONSIBILITY. 

This principle of the short ballot intends to bring 
about the concentration of responsibility by popular 
election of only conspicuous and important officers to 
whom large powers of appointment are given. With 
this increase of responsibility and power in these 
few elective offices should come, of course, a more 
direct responsibility to the people which would natur¬ 
ally recommend the application of the principle of 
initiative, referendum and recall. 

SHORT BALLOT PREVAILS IN FEDERAL 
GOVERNMENT AND IN MANY CITIES. 

We have a complete application of the short ballot 
to a high degree in our federal government. We 
elect the President. He has vast powers of appoint¬ 
ment and removal in all the administrative depart¬ 
ments of the government. We have never seen am 
reason to abandon this policy and its successful opera^ 


54 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


tion in the nation is a recommendation for it in place 
of the separation and confusion which now prevail in 
the state and in the counties. 

We also have a very modern test of the short 
ballot idea in some 500 cities of the United States 
where modern forms of city government have been 
established. The main feature of the commission 
plan and of the city manager plan is the application 
of the short ballot: The election of a very few im¬ 
portant officers, the concentration of large powers of 
appointment and removal in them and the application 
of the popular processes of initiative and referendum 
and recall whereby the people have final recourse. 

HIGH ENDORSEMENT OF THE SHORT BAL¬ 
LOT. 

The general application of the short ballot has 
been almost universally endorsed by our most experi¬ 
enced and responsible leaders. 

President Wilson says: 

“I believe the short ballot is the key to the whole 
problem of the restoration of popular government in 
this country.” 

Theodore Roosevelt: 

“I believe in the short ballot. You can not get good 
service from a public servant if you cannot see him and 
there is no more effective way of hiding him than by 
mixing him up with a multitude of others so that they 
are none of them important enough to catch the eye 
of the average workaday citizen.” 

William H. Taft: 

‘T have the fullest sympathy with every reform in 
governmental and election machinery which shall facili¬ 
tate the expression of the popular will such as the short 
ballot and the reduction of elective offices.” 

John Mitchell, well known labor leader: 

I am heartily in favor of the short ballot principle 
and look for its early and general adoption.” 

Ex-President Eliot of Harvard University: 

“The short ballot is absolutely the gist of all con¬ 
structive reform.” 








AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


55 


COUNTY GOVERNMENT. 

Less effort has been made toward improvement in 
county government than has been made either in 
State or City Government; however, the search-light 
is now being turned upon the counties and discovery 
is made everywhere in the United States that county 
government is as far from adaptation to modern needs 
as is either state or city government. Indeed it is 
being prominently declared by students of local gov¬ 
ernment that “the county is the dark continent of 
American politics”. 

The main lack of efficiency in county government 
results from two principal causes: 

First—The attempt to bring all counties under the same 
form of government regardless of widely varying conditions. 

Second—the confusion of powers because of the large 
number of local elective minor officials with over-lapping 
duties and divided responsibilty. 

There is no executive head in the county and there 
is in practice no concrete form of executive control. 
This results in an organization which is about as ill- 
fitted to respond to public opinion as could well be 
imagined. The counties offer an ideal* field for purely 
partisan political administration. The same general 
need of fixing responsibility and of making possible a 
direct executive or administrative control in the state 
and city applies with even greater force in the county. 

HOME RULE FOR COUNTIES. 

California has made notable progress toward home 
rule in county government which has resulted in much 
simplification in the government of such counties as 
Alameda which contains the cities of Oakland, Ala¬ 
meda, Berkeley and eight other municipalities. The 
rapid growth in population of this county has com¬ 
pletely outgrown its original plan. 

Under home rule, the people of this county are 
adapting their government to modern needs. A plan 
of federation is being worked out which permits the 
central county government to take over and consoli¬ 
date many important functions which can only be 
administered in great confusion through separate and 
distinct departments. This movement looks toward 
the development of a County Manager somewhat like 


56 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


the modern City Manager. The ballot may be 
reduced from twenty-four (24) officers to eight (8). 

It can readily be seen that a uniform system of 
county government which was sufficient in Indiana 
two generations ago is very unsatisfactory today. 
The government of Marion, Allen, Vanderburg or 
Y r igo County certainly differs vastly from that of 
Brown or Ohio. 

. 

SHORT BALLOT. 

An application of Short Ballot in the county would 
probably provide for the election of only a Board of 
Commissioners or some form of County Council. This 
Board or Council would have large appointive powers 
and would fill the remaining offices upon a merit 
basis. Is there any reason why a County Surveyor, 
County Coroner, County Recorder and, in fact, any of 
the administrative officers of the county should be 
elected on a partisan political basis? They should be 
chosen by some authoritative body which is itself 
responsible to the people. 

(Note.—See “The County—The Dark Continent of Amer- 
' ican Politics,” a new book by IT S. Gilbertson, published by 
the National Short Ballot Organization, 381 Fourth Ave., 
New York City. Price $2.00.) 


ISSUES OF THE CITIZEN, AS NOTED 
IN THE INDEX, PAGES 156-166, CON¬ 
TAIN EXTENSIVE DISCUSSIONS OF 
ALL PHASES OF THE SUBJECT OF 
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT, INCLUD¬ 
ING THE RELATION OF PUBLIC UTIL¬ 
ITIES TO THE PROBLEM OF CITY 
GOVERNMENT, MUNICIPAL OWNER¬ 
SHIP, ETC. THESE ARTICLES CAN 
ALSO BE PROCURED IN PAMPHLET 
FORM. 













AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


57 


THE BUDGET SYSTEM. 

I he budget system may be defined as a systematic 
and unified statement: 

(1) of the future financial needs of government for a 
given period. 

(2) of the present financial condition. 

(3) of the prospective revenue and income. 

(4) of a plan for meeting deficits or preventing surplus— 
all in one complete budget. 

This statement or series of statements should be 
prepared in the executive department which has the 
responsibility and the power of carrying on the work 
and of spending the money. 

OUR PRESENT FINANCIAL SYSTEM. 

In lieu of such a business-like system as the budget 
contemplates, we now have the shiftless method 
whereby a ‘Visiting committee” presents to the legis¬ 
lature a hastily prepared report based on insufficient 
data and made by men who have no responsibility for 
results if their recommendations prove to be faulty. 
These recommendations usually prevail in the legis¬ 
lature. In addition to these recommendations, every 
institution or officer can and usually does plead his 
own “case for more money” and any member of the 
legislature may move an increase or decrease of any 
• item. Likewise any member may introduce any num¬ 
ber of bills carrying special appropriations not con¬ 
templated by the committee. 

The governor, who in the end is responsible, has 
no means of checking reckless expenditures in a dis¬ 
criminating way since under the constitution he has no 
authority to veto any separate item or items of appro¬ 
priation bills. He must either veto the entire bill or 
tamely submit to all kinds of special riders and jokers 
that may be inserted. 

The Bureau of Municipal Research and Training 
School for Public Service with offices 261 Broadway, 
New York, is rendering splendid service in its investi¬ 
gation and presentation of the budget system. It 
explains and defines the scientific budget as follows: 



58 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


INSTRUMENT AND PROCESS OF GOVERN¬ 
MENT. 

To speak concretely, a scientific budget is both an instru¬ 
ment and a process of government. As an instrument, it is 
a means of getting before the representative body, which 
has the power to control the purse, a well-considered plan, 
with all the information needed to determine whether the 
plan should be approved before funds are made available 
for its execution. As a process of government, it is a pro¬ 
cedure for insuring complete accountability for past grants, 
and for requiring those whose future acts are to be con¬ 
trolled to assume full responsibility for preparing, explain¬ 
ing and defending their plans and proposals for future grants, 
such plans for the future to include: (1) an expenditure 
program based on estimated service needs, and (2) a revenue 
program indicating what grants of authority are desired to 
enable them to raise the money to make purchases as well 
as to meet outstanding obligations. 

THE EXECUTIVE BUDGET. 

An executive budget for a state government means: 

1— That the best that a numerous representative body 
can do is to review, discuss, and approve or disapprove 
a plan, which is brought before it by someone. 

2— That that someone must be one who is made re¬ 
sponsible for thinking about the state’s business as a 
whole and for planning its future work before the legis¬ 
lature meets. 

3— That the one officer who, in the line of duty, can 
do this and who is properly regarded as speaking for 
the state as a whole rather than for a collection of 
counties and towns and cities is the elected chief ex¬ 
ecutive. 

A —That the governor is the one to whom both the 
people and their representatives may look to consider . 
initially state business as a whole in terms of service 
needs and service costs and to propose means of rais¬ 
ing funds, because he can be held responsible to the 
voters of the state. 

5— That to do this effectively the far-reaching de¬ 
mands of officers and the clashing interests of the sev¬ 
eral divisions and departments of the government must 
first be worked over in the presence of the governor 
and a balanced program adopted, which he is ready to 
advocate in advance of the legislative session. 

6— That the responsibility of the executive for what 
has been done by the administration and for the estimates 
of future expenditures must be enforced through pub¬ 
licity, and to this end the executive plan should be pre¬ 
sented openly to the legislature and discussed frankly 
in such a manner as to give each member of the legis¬ 
lature a chance to ask questions of spending officers 
















AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


59 


while the details are under consideration and before 
either the appropriation or the revenue bills are brought 
up for enactment. 

7—That back-stairs negotiations between individual 
spending officers and members of standing committees 
meeting behind closed doors—practices fostered by put¬ 
ting the initiative in the legislature—should be discour¬ 
aged and, if possible, discredited. 

8—That when the legislature acts, whether on an ap¬ 
propriation bill, a revenue bill, or a borrowing bill, it 
should act on a recognized part of a well-balanced and 
well-considered plan, and that no member should be 
required to vote on any matter until he has had a chance 
to become informed by asking questions of administra¬ 
tive officers—thus obviating the evils which arise when 
members are compelled to vote blindly on a lot of de¬ 
tailed bills prepared by a few anonymous committee¬ 
men without any reference to the needs of the state 
as a whole. 

9—That with a view to enforcing responsibility on 
the part of the executive and providing for publicity, 
the legislature should be compelled to act on the budget 
in committee-of-the-whole with the executive and all 
members present, and that the budget should remain in 
the committee-of-the-whole until every issue raised may 
be clearly drawn and facts and arguments may be ad¬ 
duced on both sides in such a manner as to permit the 
members in the legislature and the voters outside to 
form their judgments on the basis of facts rather than 
on empty partisan phrases. In other words, the issues 
of political campaigns should be developed in the de¬ 
bates over the work of the state government. 

BUDGET SYSTEM IN OHIO AND MARYLAND. 

Under the new constitution of Ohio a modern 
application of the budget system is being approached 
in the state and to some extent in the counties and 
to a very high degree in some of the cities such as 
Dayton. 

The State of Maryland adopted comprehensive 
amendments to its constitution in 1916 providing for 
an executive budget following very closely the recom¬ 
mendations of the Bureau of Municipal Research. 

RELATION OF BUDGET AND SHORT BALLOT. 

It can be clearly seen that the application of the 
short ballot and the budget system work a harmoni¬ 
ous concentration of responsibility and power in the 
executive. This system “regards” the governor as 



‘60 NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 

indeed the specially chosen representative of the peo¬ 
ple and the exponent of public thought, the con- 
server of the public welfare,—a chief executive in 
theory and in fact. It is very evident, both from 
reason and experience that such power and responsi¬ 
bility must rest in some one. If it be not lodged in 
some officer who can use it, then it will reside in some 
irresponsible power which cannot be located but 
remains hidden in the confusion of the “invisible gov¬ 
ernment.” 

If we do not have confidence in our public ser¬ 
vants, wherein shall our confidence in a democratic 
form of government abide? Instead of fearing, dis¬ 
trusting and limiting our officers in ways that we do 
now, we should trust them and empower them to 
really serve the public. 

NEW TYPE OF GOVERNOR. 

The idea naturally suggests itself that by this 
means, we may hope to develop a class of public 
servants who may be worthy of the utmost trust. 
This idea is well expressed by the Bureau of Munici¬ 
pal Research in its declaration that the executive 
budget calls for a new type of governor. 

Placing responsibility for the state’s business on the 
governor calls for a new type of statesman. Not long 
ago the new governor of one of the richest common¬ 
wealths in the Union declared openly that he knew 
nothing about public finances when he took office. He 
was well aware, when a candidate, that he would have 
to assume no real responsibilities in the matter if 
elected. The voters being acquainted with this fact 
were wholly indifferent as to his qualifications for busi¬ 
ness management. Under our “good, old system,” the 
governor signs a number of warrants, pardons a few 
criminals, appoints a few officers (but not enough of 
them to secure material authority over, or responsibility 
for, administration), and preaches a little sermon to the 
legislature once or twice a year. But if the governor 
is made responsible for initiating the budget and thus 
for having some genuine information about public finance 
and public business, many an aspiring politician will have 
to go to the trouble of finding out something about 
government before he can hope to rise to leadership. 
Back-slapping, hand-shaking, and back-stairs negotia¬ 
tions will not be the only royal road to power. Imagine 
a candidate for governor studying taxation and finance, 
looking into problems of cost accounting, inquiring into 








AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


61 


institutional management, mastering the intricacies of 
state administration, and going into office with full 
knowledge of the grave responsibilities which will rest 
upon him! 


LABOR AND SOCIAL JUSTICE. 

Our Constitution is in complete default of a modern 
program touching labor and social justice. Conditions 
in the labor world today demand the possibility of 
improved public regulation along such lines as social 
insurance of all kinds affecting working men, mother's 
pensions, minimum wage, compulsory compensation, 
old age pension, hours of labor, physical environment, 
etc. Consideration of these in Indiana calls up such 
serious questions of constitutionality as to effectively 
prevent progress. 

It is not to be wondered at that no provision was 
made in the Constitution of 1851 covering such needs 
as exist in this field today. No such needs existed 
then and none could possibly have been contemplated. 
We had no distinctly industrial problems and no indus¬ 
trial class. The total number of people in Indiana 
listed as laborers at that time was 14,432. Our total 
investment in manufacturing plants, which consisted 
largely of individual shops and mills at cross roads 
and along the streams, amounted to less than $8,000,- 
000. We had just begun to build railroads, only 212 
miles having been completed in' 1850, of which 124 
miles had been constructed the preceding year. The 
state was not thickly populated anywhere and conse¬ 
quently there were none of those acute problems 
which we now recognize in the field of social justice. 

A specific example of a constitutional obstacle in 
the path of social justice is to be found in the provi¬ 
sion of Article I, Section 12, of our state Constitution 
that “every man for injury done to him in his person, 
property or reputation shall have remedy by due 
course of law”. This “due course of law” provision 
has been universally held to mean a trial in the courts. 
Its original purpose was to prevent arbitrary and un¬ 
just imprisonment or vindictive punishment through 
irresponsible and despotic authority. The circum¬ 
stances and conditions which gave it its original mean- 





62 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


ing have long since passed away. It is still inter¬ 
preted to mean “trial in the courts”, and it now applies 
with marked effect to disputes between capital and 
labor. Now instead of being a bulwark of personal 
rights and liberties, it is the substantial rock of defense 
for powerfully vested interests. 

By reason of this provision, it is impossible for us 
to have a compulsory compensation law whereby the 
employer and the employee can be required to adjust 
their differences as to compensation for accidents, etc., 
through the award of a special commission with abso¬ 
lute power to act and without expense or delay. In 
the absence of such a compensation law, any personal 
injury case for damages in employment may pass 
through a court of last appeal and the injured em¬ 
ployee go without compensation for years. Such a 
situation is clearly in the interest of corporate wealth 
and not of labor. It results in tremendous expense 
and waste and operates to defeat final justice. 

The Indiana Legislature of 1915 passed a so-called 
compensation law which is a step in the right direc¬ 
tion but which is sadly deficient since, under the 
Constitution, it could not be made compulsory. Some 
1500 employers rejected the law on the first day it 
went into operation, and others have rejected it since. 
Hence, large numbers of workers are not under its 
terms at all. With all due allowances for the good 
that has been accomplished under it, ineffective as it 
is, experience has proved it to be very weak. The law, 
as originally passed,included a fourteen-day disability 
requirement before compensation began. An illustra¬ 
tion of the manner in which this waiting period pre¬ 
vents compensation is found in the typical month of 
February, 1916. In this month a total of 2843 em¬ 
ployees were injured by industrial accidents, and only 
104 received any benefit, whatever, through the com¬ 
pensation law, since only 104 out of the 2843 could 
show a disability that extended beyond 14 days. 

This was a representative report of the State In¬ 
dustrial Board. The injured laborers suffer the loss 
of time and inconvenience, and have also to bear the 
expense of treatment for these 14 days. In the name 
of justice, should they not have compensation? 

During the legislature of 1917, this waiting period 
was reduced to seven days. This legislation is an 


-?i 





AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


63 


improvement, but it may result in more employers 
rejecting the act. If the law were made really effective 
it could not benefit the laborer, since, under the Con¬ 
stitution of Indiana, it would be declared unconstitu¬ 
tional. 

Our new Constitution will undoubtedly make ra¬ 
tional provisions whereby any law for the public wel¬ 
fare affecting conditions of life and labor in any field 
may be constitutional and binding if the legislative 
authorities and the people see fit to approve it. The 
Constitution should surely give as much attention at 
least to human life and to living conditions as it does 
to property and business security. An Indiana Con¬ 
stitution adapted to conditions in 1918 will not neglect 
a program of labor and social justice. 

An example of modern constitutional provisions of 
this nature is to be found in the Constitution ol Ohio. 
In Article II, Sections 33, 34 and 35, we find: 

Sec. 33. Laws may be passed to secure to mechanics, ar¬ 
tisans, laborers, sub-contractors and material men, their just 
dues by direct lien upon the property, upon which they have 
bestowed labor or for which they have furnished material. 
No other provision of the constitution shall impair or limit 
this power. (Adopted Sept. 3, 1912.) 

Sec. 34. Laws may be passed fixing and regulating the 
hours of labor, establishing a minimum wage, and providing 
for the comfort, health, safety and general welfare of all 
employes; and no other provision of the constitution shall 
impair or limit this power. (Adopted Sept. 3, 1912.) 

Sec. 35. For the purpose of providing compensation to 
workmen and their dependents, for death, injuries or occu¬ 
pational diseases, occasioned in the course of such work¬ 
men’s employment, laws may be passed establishing a state 
fund to be created by compulsory contribution thereto by 
employers, and administered by the state, determining the 
terms and conditions upon which payment shall be made 
therefrom, and taking away any or all rights of action or 
defenses from employes and employers; but no right of 
action shall be taken away from any employe when the in¬ 
jury, disease or death arises from failure of the employer 
to comply with any lawful requirement for the protection 
of the lives, health and safety of employes. Laws may be 
passed establishing a board which may be empowered to 
classify all occupations, according to their degree of hazard, 
to fix rates of contribution to such fund according to such 
classification, and to collect, administer and distribute such 
fund, and to determine all rights of claimants thereto. 
(Adopted Sept. 3, 1912.) 


64 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


THE LIQUOR PROBLEM. 



Indiana has statutory prohibition. This by reason 
of a law which goes into effect April 2, 1918. It now 
remains to be seen whether Indiana is to have con¬ 
stitutional prohibition. The question in this state now 
is whether the action of the Legislature in passing 
a prohibition statute will be ratified by the voters b\ 
the adoption of prohibition in the Constitution. 

If this is done, Indiana will be entitled to join the 
following states in which prohibition is now in effect, 
named chronologically: Kansas, N. Dakota, Okla¬ 
homa, Georgia, Mississippi, N. Carolina, Tennessee, 
Maine, W. Virginia, Arizona, Alabama, S. Carolina, 
Washington, Iowa, Idaho, Colorado, Arkansas, Ore¬ 
gon and Virginia. 

The Indiana law establishes absolute state-wide 
statutory prohibition after April 2, 1918. The law 
prohibits the manufacture and sale of any alcoholic 
preparation containing more than 1-2 of 1 per cent, 
alcohol per volume, including patent medicines that 
may be used for beverage purposes. The law does 
not permit shipments for personal use. The only 
thing a druggist can sell is pure grain alcohol, and 
that only on a physician’s prescription. It is a bone- 
dry law. 

As matters now stand, Indiana belongs to the 
group of states having statutory prohibition which 
includes Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Missis¬ 
sippi and Tennessee, Utah and New Hampshire. 

Those states now looking upon our evolution from 
their vantage ground of constitutional prohibition are 
Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Maine, N. and S. Caro¬ 
lina, N. Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Virginia, W. Vir¬ 
ginia and Idaho. 

The last states making up part of the temperance 
wave that apparently is sweeping the country will 
have their prohibition law go into effect as follows: 

Nebraska-May 1, 1917 

S'- Dakota-July 1, 1917 

Utah-August 1, 1917 

Indiana-April 2, 1918 

Michigan-April 30, 1918 

New Hampshire-May 1, 1918 

Montana December 31, 1918 














AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


65 


Of these, Michigan, S. Dakota, Montana and Ne¬ 
braska are constitutional. Utah, Indiana and New 
Hampshire are statutory. 

Ohio, Minnesota, Wyoming and New Mexico will 
vote on the subject this year. 

The status of the movement in Indiana is now one 
of active effort to insure the submission to the people 
of the prohibition question by the coming constitu¬ 
tional convention. The temperance forces will con¬ 
tinue their work here until the liquor question in the 
state is settled finally by constitutional enactment, and 
until the matter is determined nationally by federal 
constitutional action. Those working for prohibition 
favor the submission of the question by the consti¬ 
tutional convention as a separate and specific propo¬ 
sition. 

Coming now to the national movement, we find the 
prohibition amendment to the federal constitution 
pending in Congress. If two-thirds of both Senate 
and House pass the amendment, it will then have to 
be ratified by three-fourths of all the states in order 
for prohibition to become national. So far as Indiana 
is concerned, the national prohibition question will 
not be settled until the Indiana General Assembly 
votes on behalf of the state to ratify the submitted 
amendment. 

If the amendment is submitted by Congress to the 
states, the question can be disposed of finally by affir¬ 
mative action only, for it will come up at succeeding 
sessions of the legislatures until passed. When the 
Legislature of any given state votes favorably on the 
amendment, this action cannot be rescinded, but must 
stand until the other thirty-five states do likewise. 
It requires no further congressional action. 


ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISH¬ 
MENT. 

The question as to whether or not capital punish¬ 
ment should be abolished in Indiana is one of con¬ 
tinuous investigation and discussion. It takes up a 
good deal of time in every legislature. In the last 
two sessions at least it was one of the most important 
subjects considered. 


66 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


The proceedings of the Constitutional Convention 
of 1850-51 show that the question of forbidding cap¬ 
ital punishment by constitutional provision was given 
prominent consideration in that convention. 

This is not necessarily a constitutional subject, 
since it can be prohibited by statute. However, it 
may be said that the subject is one of enough import¬ 
ance that perhaps the people of Indiana should be 
given a chance to determine it upon separate proposal 
by the constitutional convention. If the people of 
Indiana desire that capital punishment be abolished 
they would perhaps be willing to place such a provi¬ 
sion in the constitution. 

It is very certain that the subject will be one of 
much controversy in every legislative session until 
finally determined. Successive legislative defeats of 
measures proposing to abolish capital punishment 
have not prevented the question from arising again. 

The following states have abolished capital pun¬ 
ishment: Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dako¬ 
ta, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, 
Washington, Wisconsin and Arizona. 

The method in all of these was by statute except 
in Oregon, where capital punishment was abolished 
by an initiated constitutional amendment. 

The Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1912 sub¬ 
mitted as a separate proposal the question of the aboli¬ 
tion of capital punishment. 258,706 “yes” votes were 
cast on this proposal and 303,246 “no” votes. Thus 
the proposal was defeated by a majority of 44,540 
votes. 

Arizona did away with capital punishment through 
initiated act at the election in, November, 1916, by a 
majority of 152 votes. 

BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The Reproach of Capital Punishment—Hamilton Mercer, 
Greensburg Democrat Co., Greensburg, Ind. 

The Criminal—Havelock Ellis. 

Indiana State Library Bulletin, January 1912. Against Cap¬ 
ital Punishment. 

Bibliography of Capital Punishment. Compiled by the Bu¬ 
reau of Legislative Information, State House, Indian¬ 
apolis, Ind. 

Bibliography on Capital Punishment. State Library, To¬ 
peka, Kans. 














AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


67 


IMPEACHMENT. 

The process of removing incompetent or defaulting 
officers in Indiana has not been a success. One of the 
principal reasons, if not the principal reason, for the 
growth of sentiment in favor of the recall has been 
the failure of the impeachment plan. This failure 
has been due, in part, to ineffective impeachment 
statutes and in part, of course, to lack of interest in 
their enforcement. 

There has also been a very great constitutional 
obstacle in the way of having a successful impeach¬ 
ment law in Indiana. No impeachment law can be 
passed that can reach prosecuting attorneys and 
judges without a complete change in the Constitu¬ 
tion. 

Article VII., Sec. 12, provides: 

Any Judge or Prosecuting Attorney, who shall have 
been convicted of corruption or other high crime, 
may on information in the name of the State, be re¬ 
moved from office by the Supreme Court, or in such 
other manner as may be prescribed by law. 

The Supreme Court of Indiana has held in at least 
two important cases: 

“that the judge and prosecuting attorney are consti¬ 
tutional officers; they are so designated in the organ¬ 
ic law, and are neither State or county officers; and 
that they are not subject to any impeachment law that 
may be passed under the provisions of Sec. 7 and 8, of 
Art. VI. 

State vs. Friedley, 135 Ind. 119. 

State vs. Patterson, 181 Ind. 660. 

This entire question was passed on squarely May 21, 1914, 
in the case of State vs. Patterson, 181 Ind. 660. 

This was an action by Atty-General Honan to re¬ 
move Patterson, prosecuting attorney of Lake county, 
on accusation of eleven articles specifically charging 
incompetency, neglect and dereliction of duty by fail¬ 
ure and refusal to prosecute offenses relating to gam¬ 
bling, gambling devices, houses of ill-fame, illegal sales 
of intoxicating liquor and Sunday labor. Defendant 
prosecutor made no denial or defense, but demurred 
to accusation as insufficient under the Constitution. 
The Lake Circuit Court sustained the demurrer, 


68 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


appeal was taken to the Supreme Court and judgment 
was affirmed. The Supreme Court said: 

“We are of the opinion that because of the provi¬ 
sion of Section 12, Article VII, the Legislature is with¬ 
out power to prescribe any cause for the removal from 
office of a prosecuting attorney, other than what is 
named in such section, and consequently negligence 
cannot be held as a lawful cause for removing such 
officer.” 

“Regardless of the reasons that may have actuated 
the framers of the Constitution in hedging prosecuting 
attorneys against removal except after conviction of 
one of the offenses named in Section 12, Art. VII, we 
are of the opinion that such was their intention, and 
that if it should be held that it was the legislative in¬ 
tent in enacting Section 35 of the Act of 1897, supra, 
to provide for the removal of prosecuting attorneys 
for mere neglect in the performance of official duties, 
the act to that extent, wmuld be invalid, because in con¬ 
flict with Section 12, Art. VII, of our Constitution.” 

“It must be presumed that the members of the Leg¬ 
islature did not intend to pass an unconstitutional act.” 

It is perfectly futile to expect to have an adequate 
impeachment provision, unless the same provision can 
reach the prosecuting attorney. The greatest lack of 
law enforcement is found in the office of the prose¬ 
cuting attorney, and as the matter now stands, he can 
not be reached at all unless his misdeeds are so 
flagrantly criminal that he can actually be convicted 
of corruption or other high crime beyond a reasonable 
doubt in a criminal trial. 

It is well known that this is absolutely impossible 
in the great majority of cases, even where the prose¬ 
cutor is openly and publicly known to be either wholly 
incompetent or absolutely derelict in his performance 
of duties. 

Exactly the same provision applies to judges as 
to prosecuting attorneys. Such a provision is equally 
unwarranted and undesirable in both cases. Indeed, 
it may be said that this provision is the key to the 
failure of the impeachment plan in Indiana. As long 
as prosecutors and judges are absolutely beyond the 
reach of any kind of recourse other than criminal 
process, how can it be expected that through them 
other incompetent and corrupt officers with whom 
they are associated can be apprehended? Certainly 
the Constitution ought to make it possible to impeach 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 69 

directly any officer in any department for nonfeasance, 
misfeasance or malfeasance in office. Unless an im¬ 
peachment plan can be developed that will show much 
greater adaptation to public needs in Indiana, nothing 
else can be expected than a resort to the radical remedy 
of recall. 


THE RECALL. 

• ■ 

The recall, briefly defined, is 
“the process by which a stated number or percentage of 
qualified voters may, at their option, require that the ques¬ 
tion whether a given official is to be removed from office 
shall be submitted to the electors.” 

The recall really intends nothing more nor less 
than to place the power in the hands of the people to 
shorten the term of any officer by putting him upon 
election before his regular term expires. 

Here is the way in which the recall operates. 
When a substantial body of people of any unit of 
government become convinced that an officer is not 
fulfilling the requirements of service, a certain pro¬ 
portion of those people according to the terms of the 
recall provision, by formal petition setting forth the 
causes of removal, can within a certain time limit, 
force an election. At this election, the incumbent of 
the office may be a candidate to succeed himself, and 
at the same time, other candidates may be voted for. 
If the officer receives the highest vote, he is vindi¬ 
cated and continued in office. If he does not receive 
the highest vote, his term ends, and the one receiving 
the leading vote becomes his successor. 

This is the recall, and this is all that it contem¬ 
plates. While it is comparatively new in what we 
know as its modern operation, the principle is by no 
means new. It was recognized in America before the 
adoption of the Constitution of the United States. 
The delegates to the Continental Congress from Penn¬ 
sylvania were recalled because they refused to sign 
the Declaration of Independence, and other delegates 
were sent in their stead. 

The recall exists in various forms throughout the 
world, and has had notable application in the Democ¬ 
racy of Switzerland. 


70 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


A significant recognition of the principle of recall 
is found in England, for the manner in which the 
Parliament of England is dissolved, a new ministry 
given power and the old ministry retired, is prac¬ 
tically the recall. 

RECALL IN STATES. 

The following states have the recall in some form 
of statewide application: Oregon, Nevada, Mich¬ 
igan, Colorado, Arizona, California, Washington, 
Kansas and Louisiana—nine in all. These states, 
however, have different forms of its application. 

Idaho has adopted the principle of the recall but 
further legislation is needed to apply it. 

Washington, Louisiana and Michigan provide for 
the recall of state officers excluding judges. 

Oregon, Nevada, California, Arizona and Kansas 
provide for the recall of state officers including 
judges. 

Colorado has the recall of state officers including 
judges, and also the recall of judicial decisions. 

The number of signers required for a recall peti¬ 
tion differs. In Oregon, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada 
and Arizona, it is 25% of the number voting at the 
last election; in California, 12% for some offices, 20% 
for others; while in Washington, it is 25% for certain 
offices and 35% for others. 

For recall of judicial decisions, in Colorado, the 
petition must be signed by 5% of the voters, and a 
majority of votes is sufficient to recall. 

MUNICIPAL RECALL IN THE LAW. 

The recall for municipalities is now recognized 
and provided for in the general laws or constitutions 
of 27 states, as follows: 


Alabama 

Montana 

Arizona 

Nebraska 

Arkansas 

Nevada 

California 

New Jersey 

Colorado 

North Dakota 

Idaho 

Ohio 

Illinois 

Oregon 

Iowa 

South Carolina 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


71 


Kansas 

Louisiana 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 


South Dakota 

Virginia 

Washington 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 


and in the special acts of the following eight states: 
Florida, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, 
Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. 

Some 500 American cities now have the recall. 


LIMITED USE OF RECALL. 

Notwithstanding the rather extensive application 
of the recall in state and local communities, it has 
been very seldom used. This evidences the fact that 
the recall may operate as a safeguard, and does not 
have to be used to be effective. It may have much the 
same influence as the policeman’s club, or the gun be¬ 
hind the door. 

A general explanation of the recall, written by 
Mr. Frank A. Munsey, appeared in Munsey’s Mag¬ 
azine, May, 1912: 

“It is widely objected to the recall that in a community 
enjoying the privilege of discharging its elective officials 
at will there would be a continual turmoil because some 
faction would be busy all the time trying to get somebody 
recalled from office. The experience of commissioned-gov- 
erned cities proves quite the contrary. The recall has seldom 
been invoked. The very fact that public officials know such 
power to be in the hands of the people makes them more 
concerned to shape their course with reference to gaining 
and holding the approval of the people. 

Impeachment as a practical measure is a failure. It does 
not furnish the necessary relief. It has proved to be un¬ 
workable. As a result, it is rarely brought into use—never, 
indeed, except in cases of extreme disloyalty, or the grossest 
kind of unfitness. To be impeached, a man must be so much 
worse than the worst of our officials and public servants that 
impeachment finds almost no victims. 

Moreover, impeachment damns a man for life. It brands 
him as so worthless or so vile a creature that he never has 
a chance again. It makes him an outcast beyond the pale 
of decency. 

To be recalled, on the other hand, does not by any means 
utterly damn a man. It simply implies that he has failed 
to make good on the particular job on which he has been 
tried out. 



72 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


There are many men liable to the recall, and who should 
properly be recalled; but there are very few to whom im¬ 
peachment could be successfully applied, or wisely or hu¬ 
manely applied. The recall is a workable, practical, com¬ 
mon-sense, just measure, while impeachment is an utter 
failure.” 

It is quite probable that the principle of recall 
will gain strength by the growth of the principle of 
concentrating responsibility and power in a few offi¬ 
cers. The application of the short ballot in state and 
county government will necessarily bring with it a 
greater demand for the recall just as it has done in 
improved processes of city government. This natur¬ 
ally results from the theory that the larger the meas¬ 
ure of power which the people grant to a public serv¬ 
ant, the more direct should be their recourse upon 
him. 


PROPORTIONAL REPRESEN¬ 
TATION. 

Proportional representation has been defined as: 

“a plan or system of choosing representative bodies so that 
all considerable groups of voters will be represented in pro¬ 
portion to their number.” 

It proposes a system whereby minority groups 
may be represented upon the same fair basis as ma¬ 
jority groups. 

It is sometimes called “representation by unan¬ 
imous constituencies” and is regarded as a great step 
forward in the political life of such countries as Bel¬ 
gium, Sweden, Australia, Ireland, Transvaal and sev¬ 
eral others where it has been adopted. 

The theory of proportional representation is that 
each considerable party or group of opinion should 
be represented in the council or legislative body in 
the proportion of its voting strength. Thus if in an 
election at which seven representatives are to be 
chosen, the Democrats cast four-seevenths, the Repub¬ 
licans two-sevenths, and the Socialists one-seventh of 
the vote, those parties should be represented in the 
council by four, two, and one representative respect¬ 
ively. If the division of opinion is not along party 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


73 


lines, the actual division should nevertheless be rep¬ 
resented in proportion to the number of voters in 
each. 

There can be no question but that our legislative 
bodies both in state and city as at present composed, 
really represent only geographical sections, numbers 
and majority interests as expressed through political 
organizations. The fairness of the theory underlying 
a system of proportional representation cannot be 
disputed. The problem is to work out a concrete 
method of operation. 

The first American test of proportional represen¬ 
tation was the election of a city council in Ashtabula, 
Ohio, November 2, 1915. This little city framed a 
new charter early in 1914 under the home rule pro¬ 
vision of the Ohio constitution. The charter provided 
for a city council of seven members elected at large 
by proportional representation. The result was that 
a council was selected which all elements of the city 
joined in proclaiming thoroughly representative. The 
leading newspaper, which had opposed the system 
until its trial in this election, declared afterwards: 

“The drys and wets are represented. The Protestants 
and Catholics, the business, professional and laboring men, 
the Republicans, Democrats and Socialists, the English, 
Swedes and Italians, all are represented. It would be hard 
to select a more representative council in any other way.” 


This system of proportional representation known 
as the Hare System, which is now in operation in 
Ashtabula and is being promoted by the American 
Proportional Representation League, is explained as 
to its general principles by the following quotations 
from the quarterly publications of the League: 

“The first step to be taken towards the introduction of 
true representation is to get rid of the single-member dis¬ 
trict. This may be done by throwing all the districts to¬ 
gether, so that all the members of the representative body 
are elected at large. For private organizations and for cities 
that are not too large this is the best method. For a very 
large city, however, or for an entire state or nation, elec¬ 
tion at large is usually not advisable, and in such cases 
the single-member districts should be thrown together into 
larger districts having sufficient population to be entitled 
to elect several members each. 

The second requisite of a proportional or unanimous- 



74 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


constituency system is that each voter shall have but one 
vote, even though his community or district is electing sev¬ 
eral members. (It is only in appearance that this principle is 
violated by some of the proportional systems in use.) One 
vote is all that each voter has under the old-fashioned single¬ 
member district system, and it is all that he should have; 
for obviously if many votes are required to elect one mem¬ 
ber, no voter has a right to share in the election of more 
than one. 

The third requisite of a system of electing representa¬ 
tives is that the voter must be allowed to express alterna¬ 
tive choices to show how he desires his vote to be used 
under different circumstances. If you were sending to the 
market for some fruit, and did not knotv just what kinds 
would be found in stock, you would want to express alterna¬ 
tive choices so that your order would be effective for the 
kind of fruit you like best among those that could be had. 
This privilege of expressing alternative choices is one that 
the voter also must have if he is to be able to express his 
real will freely without running the risk of throwing his 
vote away. If your first choice for a city council is Mr. B., 
but you are afraid he has no chance of being elected, you 
are obliged, if you have no opportunity of expressing alterna¬ 
tive choices, to pass by Mr. B. and vote for a man you like 
less who has more chance of being elected; and you are 
in the same predicament if Mr. B. is so strong a candidate 
that he will probably be elected easily without your vote; 
in either case you do not feel free to express on the ballot 
your real will. Clearly, if the constituencies to elect the 
several members are to be made up in accordance with the 
real will of the voters, every voter must be free to express 
his real will without fear of its being thwarted. This end 
is accomplished by the Hare ballot and the Hare rules of 
counting. 

If these three principles are not carried out by a system 
of election, true representation cannot be expected. The old- 
fashioned system of election violates flatly the first and the 
third of these principles; the Hare system carries out all three 
principles satisfactorily. In short, the Hare system under¬ 
takes nothing less, and in fact does nothing less, than to give 
voters the means of electing, without the least inconvenience 
to themselves—even without the need of a primary election 
—a body that must be recognized as truly representative 
according to ballots which express the real will of the 
voters.” 











AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


75 


OUR LEGISLATIVE SYSTEM. 


Constitutional consideration of our legislative sys¬ 
tem involves the following general phases: Bi-Cam¬ 
eral Plan, Limitation of Session, Local and Special 
Legislation and Initiative and Referendum. 

BI-CAMERAL OR UNI-CAMERAL SYSTEM. 

The Bi-Cameral, or “two-house” legislative sys¬ 
tem prevails in America, both in the states and in 
the nation. It formerly prevailed in the legislative 
department of cities, but has been replaced in prac¬ 
tically all cities by a council consisting of a single 
chamber. The bi-cameral system, such as we now 
have it in our states, has no actual historical prece¬ 
dent and is not based upon any vital principle. If it 
has any reason at all for its existence, it is to be found 
merely in an effort at prudence by extension of our 
system of checks and balances which rests upon the 
“doctrine of original sin in politics” as expressed by 
Mr. Bryce. 

It is not copied after the two-house * system of 
England nor of ancient republics, nor even of our 
own federal government. In all of these cases, there 
was and is a distinct difference between the constitu¬ 
ency of the two houses. The House of Lords in Eng¬ 
land is fundamentally different in its make-up and 
character from the House of Commons and repre¬ 
sents a class and an interest entirely absent from our 
country. In ancient republics, the “upper house” 
was really a part of the executive power of govern¬ 
ment. In our national government, the Senate repre¬ 
sents the states. It was originally intended to be 
fundamentally different from the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives representing groups instead of population. 
While it still retains its character as a body repre¬ 
senting the states, it has lost much of its distinctive 
character by the popular election of Senators. ‘ 

No such distinction can be traced in any way in 
the two houses of our state legislature. The mem¬ 
bers of both are chosen by the same people from dis¬ 
tricts only slightly changed by reason of the fact that 
the Senators are fewer and therefore the senatorial 


76 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


district must be larger. Marion County, as a legis¬ 
lative district, has ten representatives; as a senatoiial 
district, it has four and one-half senators. 

Professor James Quayle Dealey, Professor of Po¬ 
litical Science of Brown University, after a careful 
and comprehensive study of American State Legis¬ 
latures, says: 

‘‘In experience, the two house system has not worked 
well in the United States, neither in the cities nor in the 
states. It results in political bargaining, dead-locks, a lack 
of legislative responsibility and a multiplication of useless 
legislation. Furthermore the labor and expense are entirely 
out of all proportion to the returns.” 

Have we arrived at the time when we may con¬ 
sider in the states, as in cities, the advisability of 
having a legislative commission composed of a much 
smaller number of men especially chosen to do the 
particular work which the people want done in a 
representative capacity? 

LIMITATION OF SESSION. 

Is the arbitrary limit of sixty-one days as a 
complete session every two years serving a useful 
purpose? The sixty-one days includes holidays and 
Sundays. These together with the time taken for 
organization and routine work in getting started 
leave only about forty or forty-five days for the con¬ 
sideration of bills. This has resulted in making it 
absolutely impossible to give these bills adequate 
consideration either in committee or in open session. 
In regard to this situation Mr. John A. Lapp, Direc¬ 
tor of the Indiana Bureau of Legislative Information, 
said on March 10, 1917: 

“It is utterly impossible to do the work in sixty-one days. 
The best intentioned legislature in the world could not do 
the job in sixty-one days, even if it were not harassed by 
the job hunters, peanut politicians and self-serving lobbyists. 
To continue to try to do the work in sixty-one days is to 
continue to play directly into the hands of the people who 
profit by confusion. One hundred and fifty laws were 
dumped on the desk of the governor during the last two 
days of the session. Prior to that time, fewer than sixty 
had been sent to him. In the closing days, therefore, three- 
fourths of the legislation of the session was enacted and in 
what horrible confusion! The last night of the session 
members could be found enrolling their own bills in any 




AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


77 


part of the capitol in order to get them signed by the 
presiding officer before adjournment. What a splendid 
chance to slip jokers into bills! What a splendid opportunity 
for the clever gentlemen who knew exactly what they 
wanted! In this confusion many good laws came through 
in such shape as to render them invalid.” 

There are several things which might be sug¬ 
gested as an improvement of this feature. We might 
have a much longer session, say one hundred and 
twenty days or six months, or we might have a 
continuous session within the discretion of the legis¬ 
lature itself at a fixed annual salary. The salary 
ought not to depend necessarily upon the time spent 
but sufficient salary should be paid so that the legis¬ 
lature can do all the work that needs to be done 
whether it takes sixty days or six months. 

A novel plan is now being tried in the State of 
California, namely, that of having a divided session. 
The first part of the session is devoted to the intro¬ 
duction and primary consideration of bills. Then a 
recess is taken and the members return home to sound 
the sentiment of their constituents. During this time, 
public interest is aroused and every bill that has been 
introduced is carefully scrutinized. When the mem¬ 
bers return for the second or after session, their en¬ 
tire time is devoted to the passage of the bills and it 
is to be presumed at least that they return prepared 
to give every measure mature thought. 

LOCAL AND SPECIAL LEGISLATION. 

The principal fault in our state government under 
the old constitution of 1816 was the prevalence of 
local and special legislation. This became so unbear¬ 
able that it was the moving cause which led to the 
Constitutional Convention of 1850. We have a re¬ 
turn to this ancient evil. By fictitious evasions, our 
legislatures make special provisions for cities and 
other local units in ways that really aggravate the 
evil of local and special legislation. Is it any less 
reprehensible that an act which is prohibited directly, 
is accomplished by evasion and indirection? 

The primary step in correcting this evil will be a 
provision for a larger measure of local self-govern¬ 
ment in smaller units of government and especially 
in providing absolute home rule for cities. 


78 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


A revision of section 22, article IV, containing the 
enumerated cases of inhibitions upon local and special 
legislation can undoubtedly make it better suited to 
present day conditions. Certainly, this is one of the 
modern problems of legislative reform which our Con¬ 
stitutional Convention must consider with especial 
care and with particular regard to the complex condi¬ 
tions and needs of the day. 

Our state legislature must be made truly repre¬ 
sentative of the needs of the state and should not be 
permitted to waste its time and effort over questions 
of minor local concern. The legislature of 1915 
passed one hundred and ninety-one laws of which 
less than twenty-five were really state laws. The 
legislature of 1917 passed one hundred and eighty- 
one laws of which only five or six could really be 
called measures of state-wide general importance. 


INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. 

It is already apparent that the initiative and ref¬ 
erendum as proposed reforms in popular government 
will receive vital consideration in the campaign for the 
election of delegates and throughout the proceedings 
of the convention. It is quite probable that abundant 
literature upon all phases of the subject will be very 
easily accessible. It is only necessary here to express 
briefly what they are, where they exist, and something 
of the extent of their use. 

The following extracts are quoted from Senate 
Document No. 736, “An Article on the Present Status 
of the State-wide Initiative and Referendum Statutes, 
What They Are, Where They Are in Use, and How 
They Work”, by Judson King, Executive Secretary, 
the National Popular Government League. 


WHAT IS MEANT BY THE INITIATIVE AND 

REFERENDUM? 

The initiative and referendum are well-tried and orderly 
means of enabling the voters to control the acts of their 
legislators and secure the legislation demanded by a major¬ 
ity of the people. 








AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE . 79 


Define The Initiative. 

The initiative is a method by which a bill persistently 
blocked in the legislature but which the people desire, may, 
by means of a petition, be brought to a direct vote at a 
regular State election and enacted into a law if the majority 
votes “Yes.” 

For example: The people of Maine for years demanded 
a direct primary law. The legislature refused to pass it. An 
initiative petition, signed by 12,000 voters, was filed. The 
law was submitted at the general election of 1911, and 
adopted by a vote of 65,810 to 21,774. It has since been in 
operation. 

Define The Referendum. 

The referendum is a method by which any objectionable 
law passed by a legislature and signed by the governor may, 
by petition of the people, be referred to the voters at the 
ensuing general election, and vetoed by them if the majority 
votes “No.” 

For example: The Legislature of Washington, in 1915, 
enacted a law seriously crippling the publicly owned port of 
Seattle. This port had been built at an expense to the 
people of nearly $7,000,000. It has a fine public grain ele¬ 
vator, a big refrigerator for fruit, public warehouses, docks, 
piers, markets, etc. It was efficient and much cheaper than 
the private ports. The act was recognized instantly as the 
first step of the big corporation interests to put the public 
port out of business. 

Within 90 days a petition signed by over 6 per cent of the 
voters of Washington was filed with the secretary of state, 
the law suspended, and at the election of January 7, 1916, 
the voters rejected the act of the legislature by the over¬ 
whelming vote of 195,253 against, to 45,264 for. So this public 
port, the “ocean gateway of the Northwest,” was saved, and 

the business men of Seattle, who had done practically 
nothing to secure the initiative and referendum for Wash¬ 
ington, awoke to its value as a safeguard for legitimate bus¬ 
iness as well as for the general public . 

Do the Initiative and Referendum “Abolish the Legislature?” 

Not at all. The claim that they do, or are so intended, is 
a false charge, made by its opponents to deceive and pre¬ 
judice the people. Legislatures proceed exactly as at present 
and enact the vast bulk of legislation. No law referred by 
the initiative or referendum goes on the ballot except by 
special petition. 

How Many States Have Adopted Them? 

The following table shows that a total of 21 States have 
adopted constitutional amendments which grant these powers 
in some form. A few provisions are utterly worthless; the 
majority of them are defective, but a few States have com- 


80 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


plete and adequate amendments where a fair try-out of the 
system has been had. 


Progress and status of the State-wide initiative and 

referendum. 


[Total 21 States. February, 1917.] 


Date 



Popular 

vote on 


of 



amendment. 



State. 




Character of 

adop- 





- amendment. 

tlon. 



For. 

Against. 


1898 

South Dakota. 


. 23,816 

16,483 

Poor 

1900 

Utah* . 


. 19,219 

7,786 

Worthless. 

1902 

Oregon . 


. 62,024 

5,688 

Good. 

1905 

Nevada . 


. 4,393 

792 

Defective. 

1906 

Montana . 


. 36,374 

6,616 

Poor. 

1907 

Oklahoma . 


. 180,383 

73,059 

Defective. 

1908 

Maine . 


. 51,991 

23,712 

Do. 

1908 

Missouri . 


. 177,615 

147,290 

Fair. 

1910 

Arkansas . 


. 91,363 

39,680 

Poor. 

1910 

Colorado . 


. 89,141 

28,698 

Fair. 

1911 

Arizona . 


. 12,534 

3,920 

Excellent 

1911 

New Mexico (referendum only).... 

. 31,742 

13,399 

Worthless. 

1911 

California . 


. 138,181 

44,850 

Excellent 

1912. 

.Nebraska . 


. 189,200 

15,315 

Defective. 

1912 

Washington . 


. 110,110 

43,905 

Poor. 

1912 

Idaho 1 . 


. 43,658 

13,490 

Worthless. 

1912 

Ohio . 


. 312,592 

231,312 

Fair. 

1912 

Nevada (adds initiative) ... 


. 9,956 

1,027 

Good. 

1913 

Michigan . 


. 219,388 

152,038 

Fair. 

1914 

North Dakota . 


. 48,783 

19,964 

Bad. 

1914 

Mississippi . 


. 19,118 

8,718 

Excellent. 

1915 

Maryland (referendum only). 


.. 51,880 

24,659 

Good. 


Total . 



932,401 


1 Amendment not self-executing. 

The 

legislature has refused to pass an enabling 

act. 

Hence the people have never 

been 

permitted to use 

it. 




SIGNATURES TO PETITIONS. 

To invoke the statutory initiative, the different 
states require the petition to be signed by various 
percentages of voters ranging from five per cent in 
Missouri to ten per cent in Nevada, Arizona, Ne¬ 
braska, Washington and North Dakota. For the indi¬ 
rect statutory initiative (bringing the proposed stat¬ 
ute to the legislature), three per cent is required in 
Ohio and five per cent in California and South Dakota. 
A statutory initiative petition in Maine must contain 
the names of 12,000 voters. Most of the states require 
eight per cent. 

For constitutional initiative, the petitions range in 
the various states from five per cent in Missouri to 
fifteen per cent in Arizona, Oklahoma and Nebraska. 
I he indirect constitutional initiative requires ten per 
cent in Neva’da and twenty-five per cent in North 
Dakota. 

Most of the states require five per cent for the 
referendum. Ohio and Washington require six per 
cent. Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska and North 






































AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


81 


Dakota require ten per cent. Maine and Maryland 
require 10,000 voters. 


The number of initiative and referendum questions 
submitted in the United States, 1900 to 1916 . 


V 

K 

St ate. _ 

Number of measures voted on in election of— 



o 

'O 

< 


1904 1906 1908 

1910 1911 

1912 

1914 

1915 

1916 

O 

Eh 

1898 

1902 

1905 

South Dakota 1 . 

Oregon . 

Nevada . 

. 4 

2 11 15 

6 .... 
27 .... 

4 

31 

o 

O 

19 


5 

8 

22 

113 

1 

11 

18 

14 

7 

14 

46 

38 

34 

1906 

1907 

1908 
1908 
1910 

1910 

1911 
1911 
1911 

Montana .... 

Oklahoma . 

Missouri . 

Maine . 

Arkansas 

Colorado . 

Arizona . 

California . 

New Mexico . 


7 .... 

2 

3 ‘ ” i 

5 
4 
3 
1 
7 

26 

9 

6 

4 

4 

7 

* 1 

3 

13 

19 

21 

2 

2 

2 

2 

1 

4 

7 

10 

5 

1912 

Ohio . 








1912 

Nebraska . 




4 



4 

1912 

Washington . 




7 



O 

1918 

1914 

1914 

Michigan . 

North Dakota . 

Mississippi . 



.... 

i 


3 

2 

lo 

4 

2 

1915 

Maryland . 









To till measures sub¬ 
mitted . 

2 11 21 

45 1 

96 

110 

2 

62 

350 


lotal elections initia¬ 
tive and referen¬ 
dum States . 

2 8 5 

7 .... 

11 

16 


19 


1 None from 1898 to 1906. 


Total number of State-wide elections, 1900-1916, in which 
it was possible to submit measures by initiative and 


referendum petitions _ 72 

Total number of measures submitted by petition_350 

Average number submitted at each election, 4.86, or less 

than _ 5 

Number of special elections called to submit initiative 
and referendum questions_ 1 


Average per cent of the vote cast on measures sub 
mitted by initiative and referendum petitions as 
compared to the total vote for candidates. 


Number 




of States 

Average 

Average 

Average 


General election of—- 

using 

per cent 

per cent 

per cent 



initiative 

total vote 

total vote 

total vote 



and ref- 

on highest 

on lowest 

on all 



erendum. 

measures. 

measures. 

measures. 

1904. 



84 

r o 

1 O 

78 

1906. 


. 1 

83 

67 

77 

1908. 


. 4 

84 

71 

79 

1910. 


. ' 5 

84 

62 

73 

1912. 


. 10 

82 

68 

72 

1914. 


. 14 

84 

63 

70 

1916. 


. 14 

91 

74 

82 


Average. 


84.6 

68.3 

75.7 


What This Table Proves. 

Applying this table to the presidential election of Novem¬ 
ber 7, 1916, we have the following results in the 14 States 
which used initiative and referendum in that election: 

























































82 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK: 


Total vote for President (or governor), 14 States-.-4,785,783 
Average total on most important measures— ——4,355,062 

Average total on least important measures-3,541,479 

Average total vote on all measures—--3,924,342 


or, to, put it more concretely, out of every man or woman 
voter who cast a ballot for president or governor in these 

14 States, over 9 voters out of 10 voted on the most vital 

measures; over 7 voters out of 10 voted on the most trivial 

measures; over 8 voters out of 10 voted on every question 

submitted. 


Nonvoters are not entitled to any legal or moral consid¬ 
erations as affecting the result of a vote upon a measure any 
more than failure to vote upon a candidate. 

Abraham Lincoln, in his opinion on the admission of 
West Virginia, wrote: 

It is a universal practice in the popular elections in all 
these States to give no legal consideration whatever to those 
who do not choose to vote, as against the effect of the votes 
of those who do choose to vote. Hence it is not the qualified 
voters, but the qualified voters who choose to vote, that 
constitute the political power of the State. 


The total number of initiative and referendum meas¬ 
ures adopted and rejected at elections in the 
United States, 1904 to 1916. 1 


Number 
of States 

Elections of— using the Adopted. Rejected. Total. 

initiative 
and ref¬ 
erendum. 


1904 .... 

0 

2 ... 



2 

1906 _ 

n 

8 

2 


11 

1908 .... 

.. 5 

14 

7 


21 

1910 .... 


10 

35 


45 

1912. 


43 

53 

t i 

96 

1914 .... 

. 16 

32 

78 


110 

1916 .... 

. 19 

23 

39 


62 

Off-year elections . 

1 

2 


3 

Total . 

133 

217 


350 

i This 

table does not include measures submitted by the 

State 

legislatures. 


Total 

number of measures placed on ballot by petitions 

of the 

people. . 

. 350 


Total 

number adopted . 



. 133 


Total 

number rejected ......-... 



217 



This table proves that the people discriminate and are 
conservative and careful. 


CAMPAIGN IN MASSACHUSETTS. 

The constitutional convention campaign now on in 
Massachusetts has already developed tremendous in¬ 
terest in the initiative and referendum. An organiza¬ 
tion known as the “Committee on Publicity for the 
Constitutional Convention”, 641 Tremont Bldg., Bos¬ 
ton, is distributing literature against initiative and 
referendum. The Union for a Progressive Constitu- 
































AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


83 


tion, Room 304 Schollay Bldg., 4 Court St., Boston, 
and the Massachusetts Direct Legislation League, 53 
State St., Boston, are distributing literature favorable 
to the initiative and referendum. 

FAIR PROPOSAL. 

1 he worst opposition to initiative and referendum 
will appear in the guise of friendship offering some 
so-called provision for initiative and referendum which 
will prove to be in fact a betrayal of the principle. 
The only fair and satisfactory disposition of this con¬ 
tested issue in constitutional revision will be the sep¬ 
arate submission to the people of a bona fide proposal 
which the friends of the reform will recognize as a 
genuine embodiment of the principle. If this is done 
the people of Indiana will determine the matter upon 
its merits. 


THE OREGON PLAN. 

As a reasonable example of constitutional provi¬ 
sions establishing initiative and referendum,* the fol¬ 
lowing is taken from the Constitution of Oregon: 

ARTICLE IV. 

LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 

Section 1. Legislative Authority—Style of Bill—Initiative 

and Referendum. 

The Legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a 
Legislative Assembly, consisting of a Senate and House of 
Representatives, but the people reserve to themselves power 
to propose laws and amendments to the Constitution and to 
enact or reject the same at the polls, independent of the 
Legislative Assembly, and also reserve power at their own 
option to approve or reject at the polls any Act of the Legis¬ 
lative Assembly. The first power reserved by the people is 
the initiative, and not more than eight per cent of the legal 
voters shall be required to propose any measure by such peti¬ 
tion, and every such petition shall include the full text of 
the measure so proposed. Initiative petitions shall be filed 
with the Secretary of State not less than four months before 
the election at which they are to be voted upon. The second 
power is the referendum, and it may be ordered (except as 
to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the 
public peace, health, or safety), either by the petition signed 
by five per cent, of the legal voters, or by the Legislative 
Assembly, as other bills are enacted. Referendum petitions 
shall be filed with the Secretary of State not more than 


84 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


ninety days after the final adjournment of the session of the 
Legislative Assembly which passed the bill on which the ref¬ 
erendum is demanded. The veto power of the Governor shall 
not extend to measures referred to the people. All elections 

on measures referred to the people of the State shall be had 
at the biennial regular general election, except when the 

Legislative Assembly shall order a special election. Any 
measure referred to the people shall take effect and become 
the law when it is approved by a majority of the votes cast 
thereon, and not otherwise. The style of all bills shall be: 
“Be it enacted by the people of the State of Oregon.” This 
section shall not be construed to deprive any member of the 
Legislative Assembly of the right to introduce any measure. 
The whole number of votes cast for Justice of the Supreme 
Court at the regular election last preceding the filing of any 
petition for the initiative or for the referendum shall be the 
basis on which the number of legal voters necessary to sign 
such petition shall be counted. Petitions and orders for the 
initiative and for the referendum shall be filed with the Sec¬ 
retary of State, and in submitting the same to the people 
he, and all other officers, shall be guided by the general laws 
and the act submitting this amendment, until legislation shall 
be especially provided therefor. 

Sec. la. Initiative and Referendum on Local, Special and 
Municipal Laws and Parts of Laws. 

The referendum may be demanded by the people against 
one or more items, sections, or parts of any act of the Legis¬ 
lative Assembly in the same manner in which such power may 
be exercised against a complete set. The filing of a referen¬ 
dum petition against one or more items, sections, or parts of 
an act shall not delay the remainder of that act from becom¬ 
ing operative. The initiative and referendum powers re¬ 
served to the people by this Constitution are hereby further 
reserved to the legal voters of every municipality and district, 
as to all local, special and municipal legislation, of every 
character, in or for their respective municipalities and dis¬ 
tricts. The manner of exercising said powers shall be pre¬ 
scribed by general laws, except that cities and towns may 
provide for the manner of exercising the initiative and ref¬ 
erendum powers as to their municipal legislation. Not more 

than ten per cent of the legal voters may be required to 
order the referendum nor more than fifteen per cent to pro¬ 
pose any measure by the initiative, in any city or town. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


85 


THE JUDICIARY. 

_ 

Suggestions from responsible leaders of the bench 
and bar in Indiana looking towards specific changes 
or new provisions in the constitution affecting the 
judiciary may be grouped under the following gen¬ 
eral heads: 

Increasing the supreme court. 

Abolishing the appellate court. 

Establishing and unifying the entire court system. 

Selection of judges by appointment. 

Longer tenure for judges. 

Authorizing supreme court to fix rules of procedure. 

Requiring unanimous concurrence of members of su¬ 
preme court to declare legislative act void. 

Limiting- justices of the peace. 

Abolishing unanimity of verdict in civil and misdemeanor 
cases. 

Making jurors judges only of facts in criminal cases. 

Qualifying refusal of defendant to testify in criminal 
cases. 

Making provision for fixing lawyers’ qualifications. 

Constitutional provision along these lines of sug- 

% 

gested reform will require numerous changes and, 
in fact, an almost complete revision of Article VII 
of the constitution, and will eliminate or alter sec¬ 
tions 14, 19 and 20 of the Bill of Rights. 

UNIFICATION OF JUDICIAL SYSTEM. 

The increase in the number of supreme judges and 
the abolition of the appellate court may be properly 
considered in connection with the necessity of unify¬ 
ing and establishing our complete judicial system in 
the constitution. 

The constitution provides that the supreme court 
shall consist of not less than three or more than five 
judges. This limitation worked no hardship fifty 
or sixty years ago but the increase of population 
and the tremendous multiplication in amount and 
complexity of litigation long ago rendered this num¬ 
ber inadequate. As a sort of overflow court, the 
legislature created the appellate court of six mem¬ 
bers. This has not resulted in satisfactory relief since 
a sort of confusion of jurisdiction prevails whereby 



86 



N.EW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 

a great proportion of the cases filed in the appellate 
court can still be taken to the supreme court for 
final review. This has simply resulted in another step 
and an extra expense and delay in appellate proced¬ 
ure. 

We are not realizing the combined efficiency of 
eleven men in these two courts. One supreme court 
of eight or nine judges would be far more satisfac¬ 
tory and efficient than the two separate courts as 
we now have them. This would be only a step in the 
general unification of our courts. 

TOO MANY COURTS. 

The constitution provides now only for a supreme 
court, circuit courts, justices of the peace and ‘‘such 
other courts as the General Assembly may establish.” 
This last provision has thrown down the bars for the 
creation of numerous special courts so that we now 
have a supreme court of five judges, an appellate 
court of six judges, sixty-eight circuit court judges, 
seventeen superior court judges, one special criminal 
court, one special probate court, one special juvenile 
court (these three special courts in Marion county), 
twenty-four special city courts (in cities of the first, 
second, third and fourth class), seventy-two mayors’ 
courts (in cities of the fifth class) and 1,260 justices 
of the peace. 

The entire legal establishment of England and 
Wales employs only thirty-four judges in the Su¬ 
preme Court of Judicature and fifty-eight county 
judges whose jurisdiction covers that of our justices 
of the peace. Thus the total number of judges for this 
great body of the British Empire, including England 
and Wales, with a population of over 32,000,000 is only 
ninety-two. Indiana with a population of less than 
3,000,000 has ninety-nine main courts, to say nothing 
of our almost innumerable city courts, mayor courts 
and justices of the peace. Why is it necessary for 
our state with less than one-tenth the population of 
England and Wales and with very few of the broad¬ 
ly confusing legal problems with which the- Island 
Kingdom has to deal, to have a greater number of 
courts and judges? ‘ * ■ . > ' - * 

Certainly the constitution should remedy this sit^ 





AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


87 


nation; if not by actually limiting the number of 
courts, at least by establishing some unified system. 
Why should there be in Marion county one circuit 
court, five superior courts, one criminal court, one 
probate court, one juvenile court, seventeen justices 
of the peace (seven of them in a municipal court dis¬ 
trict) and one municipal court? The constitution 
should bring about a definite organization of our ju¬ 
dicial system so that it will be impossible to create, 
from time to time, new and special courts for local 
purposes by legislative enactment as is now the cus¬ 
tom. By unification and simplification of our system, 
it is quite possible that the number of courts could 
be very greatly reduced and much confusion in juris¬ 
diction could be eliminated. 

APPOINTMENT OF JUDGES AND EXTENSION 

OF TERM. 

The manner in which judges shall be selected and 
the fixing of their tenure of office can very appropri¬ 
ately be considered jointly. By provision of the con¬ 
stitution, our judges are elected by popular vote for 
short terms, none longer than six years. All legisla¬ 
tive-made courts have only four-year terms. Our 
judges are subject, of course, to every fluctuation in 
politics and only those men can be elected to the 
bench who can commend themselves to the political 
influences that control throughout the state and in 
various communities. Under such circumstances, it 
is impossible to realize any such ideal as an inde¬ 
pendent judiciary. 

The opinion seems to be growing in the legal pro¬ 
fession that this ought to be changed and that nothing 
can do more to establish efficiency and safety in our 
courts than to make our judges appointive and give 
them long terms or even indefinite terms during good 
behavior. 

The states of the Union differ quite materially as 
to the tenure of judges. Most of them elect judges 
by popular vote but some of them appoint. For ex¬ 
ample, in Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, and New 
Hampshire, the governor appoints the judges. In 
Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Connecticut 
and Georgia, the judges are selected by the General 


88 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 



Assembly. In all other states, they are elected by 
the voters. 

The tenure of office ranges in the various states 
from two years in Vermont to twenty-one years in 
Pennsylvania. 

In Virginia, West Virginia, Louisiana, Delaware 
and California, the term is twelve years. In New 
York, it is fourteen years and in Maryland, fifteen 
years. 

A very suggestive comment upon selection of 

judges and tenure of office is found in a most re¬ 
sponsible expression recently published in a report on 
‘‘Efficiency in the Administration of Justice,” by a 
great committee which contains such men as ex- 

President Elliott, Judge Brandeis and Moorfield 
Storey: 

“In what may be styled fairly the classical period of 
American law the bench was for a greater portion of the 
time appointive or, if elective, elected by the legislature and 
tenure was assured for life. Even after the movement for 

an elective judiciary gained strength about 1850, the tra¬ 

ditions of the older order maintained a high standard for 
some time. Since the Civil War, except in New England, 
the bench has been elective with few exceptions and for 
the most part for relatively short terms. The constructive 
work in American law, the adaptation of English case law 
and English statutes to the needs of a new country and the 
shaping of them into an American common law, was done 
by appointed judges, while most of the technicality of pro¬ 
cedure, mechanical jurisprudence and narrow adherence to 
eighteenth century absolute ideas of which the public now 
complains is the work of elected judges. The illiberal de¬ 
cisions of the last quarter of the nineteenth century to 
which objection is made today were almost wholly the work 
of popularly elected judges with short tenure. 

* * * 

Under our system of making law through judicial empiri¬ 
cism, almost everything turns on the strength, capacity and 
learning of the judge. We require much more of a judge 
than popularity or honest mediocrity or ignorant zeal for 
the public welfare can bring about. If our system is to work 
well, experts must be chosen and in consequence the mode 
of choice must be one which will be governed by expert 
knowledge of the qualifications of those who are chosen. Ex¬ 
perience has shown that in states where the bar have the 
most influence in the choice of judges the bench achieves 
the best results. That American law grew so rapidly and 
was fashioned so well up to the Civil War and stood still 
so steadfastly for a time thereafter was by no means wholly 








AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


89 


due to causes that made for rigidity of law throughout the 
world. It was due in large part to a change in the character 
of the bench as a whole in our state courts. That this 
change is closely connected with the change in the mode 
of choice and tenure of judges which became general after 
1850 is demonstrable. For no such change took place in 
those few jurisdictions in which the courts remained ap¬ 
pointive.” 

This report, which was made to the National Eco¬ 
nomic League, was intended to apply to the states 
generally. It will be noted that it applies with pe¬ 
culiar propriety to the State of Indiana. Our present 
judicial system was established in 1850. 

LET COURTS DETERMINE PROCEDURE. 

It is generally believed that much of the confusion 
and dissatisfaction in the procedure of our courts is 
due to the fact that the courts themselves do not 
directly establish their procedure. The rules of pro¬ 
cedure are fixed by legislation. It is coming to be 
the accepted opinion among courts and lawyers that 
the supreme court should absolutely fix the procedure 
in all the courts and that this would certainly tend to 
greater simplicity and efficiency. 

LET COURTS APPOINT CLERKS. 

Certainly it would seem appropriate that the courts 
should appoint their clerks instead of having these 
offices elective by political methods and entirely in¬ 
dependent of the courts which they should really 
serve. The supreme court should surely appoint the 
clerk of the supreme court and the reporter of the su¬ 
preme court and probably the lower courts should ap¬ 
point their own clerks. This would promote harmony 
and efficiency. Perhaps clerk and reporter could be 
combined into a single state position. 

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE. 

The ancient institution, known as the justice of the 
peace court, has become in many respects a great 
joke and a rather serious abuse. Our constitution pro¬ 
vides that we shall have a “competent number” or jus¬ 
tices of the peace. It seems that the word “compe¬ 
tent” is in the wrong place. We have the numbers 


90 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


but we have lacked considerable in competency. 1 he 
constitution can remedy this and can prevent the 
serious conflict and confusion of jurisdiction such as 
exists in Indianapolis and other large cities. 

The constitution of Ohio provides in reference to 
such a situation that there shall be no justices of the 
peace with concurrent jurisdiction in any township 
where a municipal court has justice of peace jurisdic¬ 
tion. 

DECLARING LEGISLATIVE ACTS VOID. 

The assumption of the power to pronounce a legis¬ 
lative act unconstitutional which, whether implied or 
intended in the constitution, was certainly not ex¬ 
pressed originally and which led Thomas Jefferson 
to pronounce John Marshall “a thief of jurisdiction,” 
has come to have most portentous significance in 
modern times because of the constant development of 
new problems and complicated subjects of legislation 
in the field of social justice. A strong and responsible 
opinion is developing that some limitation, at least, 
should be placed upon the use or abuse of such “judi¬ 
cial empiricism.” Otherwise, it can hardly be main¬ 
tained that there is really a “co-ordinate independ¬ 
ence” of departments. 

The constitution of Ohio provides that six out of 
the seven judges must concur in a decision involving 
a question of constitutionality before an act of the 
legislature can be held void. It would seem that this 
is not unreasonable and perhaps it would be even bet¬ 
ter to require a concurrence of all members of the 
court before such an “infringement on the legislative 
power” could be exercised. 

IMPROVING THE JURY. 

One of the most time honored institutions con¬ 
nected with the administration of justice is the jury 
system. The right of trial by jury since Magna 
Charta has been held in all constitutions and charters 
of liberty as a fundamental safeguard of the rights of 
the people and the very bulwark of liberty under the 
law. Very strong opinion is developing to-day that 
this ancient institution is being made the subject of 
much abuse in the administration of justice. Regard- 






AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 91 

less of this abuse, however, there is little or no com¬ 
ment to the effect that the jury should be abolished. 

S I he comment extends mainly to the necessity of dis¬ 
crimination as to its use and operation. 

UNANIMITY OF VERDICT. 

Under our constitution, the common law jury sys¬ 
tem prevails which requires that all members of the 
jury agree before a verdict can be returned. This 
has resulted in the most profound abuse and is the 
cause of a great deal of delay in the administration 
of justice and a tremendous expense in the conduct 
of trials. It results in a great many mis-trials and 
hung juries and it undoubtedly results in a vast pro¬ 
portion of compromise verdicts which do not actually 
express the real opinion of any juror. *Under unan¬ 
imity of verdict, a single contentious or corrupt juror 
can thwart the purposes of the entire body of jurors. 

A large number of our states have safeguarded the 
jury by providing that a verdict can be returned by a 
three-fourths or two-thirds majority and that such a 
verdict shall be signed by each juror who concurs in 
it. Such a provision can very properly apply to civil 
cases and probably to all misdemeanor cases. It 
should perhaps be said that unanimity of verdict 
ought to be required for conviction in felony cases, 
and especially those involving capital punishment. 

MAKE JURY FACT BODY ONLY. 

Another very outworn and unreasonable provision 
of our constitution in reference to juries is that in all 
criminal cases, the jurors shall be the sole judges 
of the law and the facts. This burden of “determin¬ 
ing the law” is certainly a violation of the real pur¬ 
pose and meaning of the jury. 

The jury is primarily a fact body. The idea un¬ 
derlying the wisdom of jury trials is that twelve men 
gathered miscellaneously from the vicinity, represent¬ 
ing various occupations, interests, experiences, ages, 
etc., will bring together an accumulation of under¬ 
standing and judgment that would result in a much 
better determination of disputed facts than could be 
had by any single expert. 

There is great reason behind this assumption, but 


92 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


what reason is there to support the requirement that 
the jurors should determine the law? They are not 
trained in the law. They have little or no knowledge 
of law and consequently they are easily confused in 
the meshes of this lofty science, for the law to-day is 
indeed a science. 

Under this provision, the judge in a criminal case 
is little more than a moderator. He simply presides 
over the hearing. He can advise and instruct, but his 
advice can be disregarded, for the attorneys can quib¬ 
ble over the law and the jurors have the right and 
duty to “determine the law.” 

This has undoubtedly been one of the reasons for 
much confusion and great lack of success in criminal 
trials in state courts. It is illuminating to consider 
in this connection the difference between results in 

4 

state courts and in our federal courts where a different- 
rule and a different system prevails. 

TESTIMONY OF DEFENDANT. 

Our constitution provides that a defendant in a 
criminal case cannot be compelled to testify, and this 
carries with it also the rule that his failure or refusal 
to testify shall not be commented upon in any way 
by the court or by attorneys. Such comment would 
set aside a conviction and result in a new trial. 

It has worked out in practice that this results in 
tremendous abuse and is a very stubborn obstacle in 
the way of arriving at the actual truth in criminal 
cases. Some constitutional remedies have been sug¬ 
gested. The defendant should perhaps continue to 
enjoy the right to refuse to testify but is there an} 
reason why such action should not be subject to com¬ 
ment and scrutiny? 

The Constitution of Ohio deals with this matter 
by providing that the failure or refusal of the defend¬ 
ant to testify shall be made a proper subject of com¬ 
ment by court and counsel. 

QUALIFICATIONS FOR LAWYERS. 

The necessity of making constitutional provision 
whereby qualifications for admission to the bar may 
be fixed needs no comment. In the general elections 
of 1900, 1906 and 1910, proposed amendments to the 








93 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 

constitution covering such a need were strongly ap¬ 
proved by the people “voting upon them,” though 
they failed of adoption because of our backward 
amendment system. 

The need of a lofty standard for admission to the 
bar is fundamental to the standing of the legal pro¬ 
fession and to the dignity and integrity of the law. 
Attorneys are, by their oath of admission and by the 
special privileges which they enjoy, an integral part 
of the court. They are officers in the realm of law, 
and the tone of its administration will necessarily de¬ 
pend, to a very great extent, upon the morale and 
quality of the bar. 

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS. 

The great committee of the National Economic 
League previously quoted summed up its recommen¬ 
dations for the improvement of “Efficiency in the Ad¬ 
ministration of Justice” as follows: 

“Reviewing the several causes of inefficiency in the ad¬ 
ministration of justice above set forth it is evident that no 
panacea is to be found. The main points to which we should 
address ourselves appear to be: (1) Proper training of the 
legal profession; (2) giving the bar greater influence in 
the selection of judges so as to insure expert qualifications 
in those who are to perform an expert’s function; (3) uni¬ 
fication of the judicial system and more effective and re¬ 
sponsible control of judicial and administrative business; 
(4) giving power to the courts to make rules of procedure 
and thus giving the courts power to do what we require 
of them; (5) improvement of legislative law-making both 
in substance and in technique; and (6) thorough study of 
the new problems which an industrial and urban society has 
raised and of the means of meeting them with the jural ma¬ 
terials at hand.” 

REVISION WITHOUT REVOLUTION. 

The suggestions contained in these proposals in¬ 
volve a thorough revision of our judicial system as 
established by the constitution, without any step to¬ 
ward revolution in the nature and conduct of the sys¬ 
tem. 

It is probable that such proposals as recall of 
judges and judicial decisions may receive considera¬ 
tion in the Constitutional Convention. If it is neces¬ 
sary to adopt such marked departures in order to ar- 




94 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


rive at responsibility and efficiency in our courts of 
justice, they should be adopted. It may seem rea¬ 
sonable to hope, however, that with a rational re¬ 
vision of the organization and conduct of our courts 
in harmony with modern needs, the demand for such 
far reaching remedies as the recall may be safely ob¬ 
viated. 

MODERN SPIRIT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE. 

It is very evident that the primary necessity in our 
courts today is that the administration of the law be 
made to harmonize with the spirit of the times. It 
must express a real regard for human rights and for 
individual interests, whether rich or poor, in all rela¬ 
tions and conditions of life. We must be able to ad¬ 
vance from a conception of legal justice to the realiza¬ 
tion of social justice; from the slavery of technicali¬ 
ties to the recognition of principles. 

Our standard must progress, as suggested by 
President Wilson to the American Bar Association, 
from finding out “what the rule has been and how the 
rule that has been applies to the case that is” to the 
standard whereby the law may “derive its impulse 
from looking forward rather than from looking back¬ 
ward, or, rather, derive its instruction from looking 
about and seeing what the circumstances of man actu¬ 
ally are and what the impulses of justice necessarily 
are. 


THIS TEXT-BOOK IS REALLY A 
COMPLETION OF THE CITIZEN, VOL. 
I, AND, TAKEN TOGETHER WITH THE 
TEN ISSUES OF THE CITIZEN, JULY 
1915 TO APRIL 1916, INCLUSIVE, CON¬ 
STITUTES A COMPLETE SET OF NEW 
CONSTITUTION LITERATURE. 

THE TEN ISSUES OF THE CITIZEN 
CAN BE PROCURED FOR 75c. SINGLE 
COPIES, 10c EACH. 










AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


95 


TAXATION. 

The subject of Taxation has been receiving in re¬ 
cent years very thorough investigation and study in 
Indiana. There is universal agreement that our tax 
system is wholly unsatisfactory in its operation. Much 
difference of opinion exists as to particular remedies 
that should be applied. Opinion is practically unani¬ 
mous, however, that Taxation Reform in Indiana must 
begin with the tax provisions of the Constitution it¬ 
self. 

The basis of our present tax system is found in 
Article X, Sec. 1 of the Constitution. 

“The General Assembly shall provide, by law, for a uni¬ 
form and equal rate of assessment and taxation; and shall 
prescribe such regulations as shall secure a just valuation 
for taxation of all property, both real and personal, ex¬ 
cepting such only for municipal, educational, literary, scien¬ 
tific, religious or charitable purposes as may be especially 
exempted by law.” 

By this provision we have established the so-called 
“general property tax’’ from which we have not been 
permitted to depart either in state or local govern¬ 
ment. A special Commission on Taxation was created 
by the Legislature for 1915 “to investigate the prob¬ 
lem of taxation in Indiana.” This Commission, con¬ 
sisting of five members appointed by Governor Ral¬ 
ston, made extensive investigation during 1916 and 
presented exhaustive reports to the Legislature of 
1917. The majority report of the Commission pre¬ 
sented the following showing of inequalities. All 
members of the Commission agreed in this phase of 
the report as to the practical operation of the system. 

TAX INEQUALITIES. 

Our investigations show that there are three counties 
in the state in which the average assessment is 25 per cent, 
of true values or less; and that there are three counties in 
which the average assessment is as high as 75 per cent. 

of true value. In other words the latter three counties are 
paying three times as much state tax, in proportion, as the 

former three counties. The assessments in other counties 
range between these extremes. In many of the counties 
there is a marked difference in the ratio of assessment in 
different townships, those which are assessed lowest escap¬ 
ing their just proportion of county taxes. 


96 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


But the most glaring inequality is between individuals. 
As shown by the investigations the average of the class of 
lowest assessments is 14.7 per cent, of true value, and the 
average of the class of highest assessments is 146 per cent, 
of true value. In other words, one class of tax-payers is 
paying ten times as much taxes, in proportion, as the other 
class. It is also shown that as a rule the high assessments 
are on the smaller properties, the classification by values 
showing a steady decrease in ratio of assessment as the 
properties increase in value. 

There is also a marked discrimination in classes of prop¬ 
erty. While the average rate of assessment in the state is 
only 40 per cent, the intangible property—money, credits, 
bonds, mortgages, etc., that get on to the tax duplicate, are 
assessed quite uniformly throughout the state at 75 per 
cent, of true value. The under-assessment of realty and 
tangible personal property makes high local tax rates in 
many places—in some more than $5.00 on $100, which is 
practically confiscatory of the profits from bond and mort¬ 
gage investments. For this reason, there is a general effort 
to avoid returning intangibles for taxation; and this is 
most successfully carried out by men of wealth and busi¬ 
ness experience. In consequence, the great mass of the 
tax paid on intangibles is paid by the smaller property own¬ 
ers, who constitute the majority of the people of the state. 
Such is the equalization that has been reached by persistent 
violation of the law. 

The taxation system of Indiana is therefore a legalized 
—or rather tolerated—system of robbing the small property 
owner for the benefit of a comparatively small body of large 
property owners; and the small property owners are re¬ 
sponsible for it; for they are in the large majority, and by 
consenting to the violation of the tax laws they are aiding 
and abetting their own spoliation. The real tax problem 
in Indiana is whether this majority of the people have the 
intelligence and the resolution to insist on an absolute en¬ 
forcement of the tax laws. It is a question for the peo¬ 
ple themselves. A single instance will illustrate. There is 
one corporation whose property in Indiana cannot be ap¬ 
praised, on any rational basis, at less than $25,000,000. It 
is assessed for taxation by the State Board of Tax Com¬ 
missioners at less than $5,000,000. Here are over $20,000,- 
000 escaping taxation under the law. Every dollar of taxa¬ 
tion escaped by one taxpayer must be made up by the re¬ 
maining tax-payers. How many of your small tax-payers 
will be required to make up this $20,000,000? 

Dr. William A. Rawles, Professor of Economics, 
Indiana University, submitted an extensive minority 
report from which the following extracts are quoted: 

According to my view the core of the trouble with our 
system is to be found in the inherent fallacy in the theory 
of the general property tax combined with the constitutional 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


97 


limitations upon the power of the legislature. It is my con¬ 
viction that no genuine or lasting improvement in our tax 
system can be made so long as we blindly and arbitrarily 
insist upon trying to tax personal property under the gen¬ 
eral property tax. 

THE GENERAL PROPERTY TAX. 

The theory of the general property tax is that each tax¬ 
payer should contribute funds to the support of the gov¬ 
ernment in proportion to the amount of property which he 
possesses. It assumes that separate parcels of property are 
assessed at amounts proportionate to their true values and 
that these assessed values are taxed at the same rate re¬ 
gardless of differences in their economic nature, their dura¬ 
bility, their productivity, their ownership or the cost in¬ 
curred by the government in affording protection. When 
economic conditions were simple the general property tax 
furnished a fairly satisfactory method of distributing the 
burdens of the government. The complexity of modern in¬ 
dustrial life, has, however, disclosed the many shortcomings 
of the system and the plan is open to severe criticism. 

The citizens of Indiana have borne its grievous injus¬ 
tice partly because they have been deceived by the osten¬ 
sible fairness of the theory which purports to apportion 
the burdens of taxation in proportion to the economic status 
of taxpayers, partly because they have been beguiled by the 
delusive hope that its practical defects would eventually be 
remedied by improving administrative methods, and partly 
because they have been too complacent to make the effort 
necessary to work out a better system of taxation. 

The real injustice of the system which has been keenly 
felt by the honest taxpayer and has been frankly admitted 
by its selfish or unscrupulous beneficiaries, has been estab¬ 
lished conclusively by the evidence submitted with this re¬ 
port. The futility of counting upon improved methods oi 
administration to correct all the evils of the system has 
been proved beyond cavil. 

I recommend that the general property tax be abandoned 
because: 

(1) It is impracticable in its application to personal prop¬ 
erty; it produces inequality through unfair assessments; it 
allows intangible property to escape taxation; it fosters dis¬ 
honesty and places a premium on perjury and it offers no 
promise of efficient administration. 

(2) It is unsound in theory; for it is inequitable (whether 
viewed from the standpoint of “ability” or “benefits”); it 
attempts to apply a uniform rule to classes of property es¬ 
sentially different; it ignores the effects of the shifting of 
taxes; it fails to reach all persons having taxpaying ability; 
it disregards variation in productive power of property; it 
assumes that intangible property is wealth in an economic 
sense. 

By recommending the abandonment of the general prop- 



98 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


erty tax I mean not the abolition of all taxes on property 
but the abandonment of the theory and practice of taxing 
all property at a uniform rate. Much stress is laid by the 
defenders of the general property tax on “uniformity.’’ They 
fail to understand that uniformity as used by writers on 
taxation means not uniform methods or rates but equality 
of taxation—the distribution of burdens in proportion to 
ability or benefits or privileges. Uniform or identical treat¬ 
ment of the various classes of property in a highly com¬ 
plex society can result only in vicious inequality. In the 
course of sixty-five years what our forefathers “conceived 
in a spirit of justice” has become the “embodiment of in¬ 
justice.” This has happened because property which at 
that time was quite uniform in character has been broken 
up into many elements dififering in their characteristics and 
requiring different treatment if equality of taxation is to be 
maintained. Taxes on property must still constitute the 
backbone of our tax system; but instead of there being one 
uniform rate of taxation there ought to be different taxes 
on the several kinds of property with proper consideration 
of the economic nature of each. 

As a matter of practical statesmanship in Indiana it is 
desirable to confine our attention at present to the solution 
of the problem of the proper taxation of personal property 
and leave for the future the further development of our tax 
system. I shall discuss only two of the proposals which 
have been suggested. 

SUBSTITUTES FOR THE PERSONAL PROPERTY 

TAX. 

In recent years two successful experiments have been 
made with substitutes for the personal property tax: the 
classified property tax and the income tax. Either of these 
plans would impose taxes on property and incomes which 
it is now impossible to reach under the general property 
tax, would yield a larger revenue without being oppressive, 
would distribute the burdens of taxation more equitably, 
and would promote the prosperity of the commonwealth by 
ceasing to force capital to leave the state in order to avoid 
confiscation. 

The essential features of the laws and the results of their 
operation are discussed at length in the report of Professor 
Campbell. I shall give here only a summary of the plans. 

THE CLASSIFIED PROPERTY TAX. 

The theory underlying this tax is that different classes 
of property vary in respect to their economic nature and 
their ease of concealment. Both justice and expediency 
require that they be taxed at different rates. Classification 
of property for purposes of taxation is merely an extension 
of the principle followed in lawmaking generally. It would 
be iniquitous for a state to prescribe the same penalty for 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


99 


all violations of the law without distinction as to the cir¬ 
cumstances and conditions. We, therefore, classify crimes 
and misdemeanors and impose different penalties suitable 
to each. In the regulation of business transactions we make 
distinctions between dealing, in real estate and dealing in 
personal property, between the rights and duties of princi¬ 
pal and agent, between mortgages and negotiable instru¬ 
ments, between sureties and guarantors. We classify busi¬ 
ness organizations, prescribe different laws for partner¬ 
ships and corporations, and we go further and classify 
corporations and enact different laws for the regulation 
of ordinary business corporations, banks, insurance com¬ 
panies and public service companies. The federal gov¬ 
ernment does not impose one uniform rate upon all im¬ 
ports. Commodities are classified and a different rate im¬ 
posed upon each class. It is quite as unreasonable and 
unjust to apply a uniform rate of duty upon all imports or 
one uniform excise tax. Statesmen have recognized the 
differences between facts and appearances and have tried 
to make the law harmonize with the facts. 

THE INCOME TAX. 

Theoretically the income tax conforms most fully to the 
canons of taxation. The failure of the early experiments 
made by certain states was due primarily to decentralized 
inefficient administration. Wisconsin has demonstrated that 
a state income tax with moderate rates can be so admin¬ 
istered as to make it a marked success. 

I shall merely sketch here the main features of an in¬ 
come tax which seems well adapted to the conditions in 
Indiana. It should apply to all residents of the state and to 
non-residents who derive incomes from property located in 
the state. Gross incomes from whatever source derived 
should be returned to the assessors. Specific deductions 
should be allowed for necessary expenses of business, for 
non-taxable incomes, taxes and certain other items. Ex¬ 
emptions of $600 to single individuals and $1,100 to the 
head of a family with $200 additional for each dependent 
child should be granted. The net incomes of individuals 
should be subject to a graduated tax beginning with one- 
half of one per cent or one per cent on small incomes and 
attaining a maximum of six per cent, on the excess over 
$14,000. The rate on corporations should be a flat rate— 
three or three and one-half per cent. The administration 
of the tax should be centralized in the state board which 
should have authority to appoint income assessors and to 
transfer them from one district to another. Provision should 
be made for appeals to local boards of review and from that 
body to the state board. Intangible property should be ex¬ 
empted from taxation. The greater part of the revenue 
should be apportioned to the local governments. 

The revenue derived from an income tax would be be¬ 
tween $3,000,000 and $4,000,000. This estimate is based upon 


100 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


a comparison of Indiana and Wisconsin in respect to 
wealth, population and the federal income tax paid in each 
state. | 

The results of the operation of the income tax law in 
Wisconsin have been (1) a toning-up of the whole system 
of tax administration, (2) an increase in revenue, (3) an ex¬ 
ceedingly low cost of administration, (4) the taxation of 
individuals who previously escaped payment, and (5) a more 
equal distribution of the tax burden. 

SUGGESTED CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION. 

In order to give the General Assembly power to enact 
laws which will provide a more equitable system of taxation 
I beg to recommend in place of the present tax-clause some 
such substitute as the following: 

“The taxing power vested in the General Assembly shall 
be plenary except as limited by the provisions of this con¬ 
stitution and by the constitution and laws of the United 
States. 

“The power of taxation shall never be surrendered, sus¬ 
pended or contracted away. All taxes shall be uniform upon 
the same class of property within the territorial limits of 
the authority levying the tax and shall be levied and col¬ 
lected for public purposes only. In furtherance of, and not 
in limitation of, the general powers conferred by this clause, 
it is hereby expressly provided that the General Assembly 
shall have the power to levy income taxes, inheritance taxes, 
business taxes and taxes upon property and, further, shall 
have power to divide property into classes for purposes of 
taxation and also to determine what class or classes of 
property shall be subject to local taxation. 

“The following property shall be exempt from taxation: 
The bonds of the state and of the political subdivisions of 
the state; personal property not exceeding in value $100 
for each household or head of a family; and the property 
of public and benevolent corporations and institutions.” 

(Such corporations and institutions should be specifically 
designated.) 

Some provision for the limitation of the tax rate should 
also be included after thorough study of the situation. 


METHODS OF AMENDMENT. 

The amendment provision of our present constitu¬ 
tion is entirely unsatisfactory. This has resulted from 
two features of the provision. 

First, the requirement that a proposed amendment 
must pass two successive legislatures in exactly the 
same form by a majority vote in each house before it 
can come before the people. 





AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 101 


Second, the requirement that on submission “to the 
electors of the State,” “a majority of said electors” 
must approve it before it can become a part of the 
constitution. 

Nothing could be more subversive of genuine ma¬ 
jority rule than to permit the negative power of ig¬ 
norance and indifference to overcome the positive in¬ 
fluence of intelligence and interest. This is what 

ft 

usually happens unless proposals submitted to the 
people are determined by a “majority vote thereon.” 

By recourse to special elections, the constitution 
has been twice amended,—one section in 1873, nine 
sections in 1881. These changes were of a compara¬ 
tively unimportant nature. Since 1881, the amend¬ 
ment route has been followed to the “end of the rain¬ 
bow” without avail. There have been no less than 
154 separate and distinct attempts to amend the con¬ 
stitution including over 440 separate proposals with¬ 
out success in a single instance. 

During these thirty-six years the only proposal 
to amend that ever got “to the people” was the so- 
called lawyers amendment which was submitted in the 
regular elections of 1900, 1906 and 1910. Each time 
it received a large majority of votes cast “thereon” 
but not a majority of the “electors of the state.” 

Clearly we need a complete revision of the amend¬ 
ment section. 

REFERENDUM PREVAILS. 

A significant feature of amendment methods is 
the fact that in every state of the Union except 
Delaware, amendments can be adopted only by a 
referendum vote of the people. In thirty-four of the 
states, proposed amendments are adopted by a “ma¬ 
jority vote on the question” and thirteen require a 
“majority of the votes cast for candidates” at a gen¬ 
eral election. 

The states differ rather widely as to the manner 
in which an amendment can be proposed. Where ini¬ 
tiative and referendum prevail on constitutional mat¬ 
ters of course the people can start an amendment by 
initiative petition without legislative action. In thirty- 
one states amendments can be proposed by action of 
one legislature. Some constitutions, as in California, 


102 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Illinois and Kansas, require a two-thirds majority of 
both houses to propose an amendment. In Ohio, 
Maryland and Nebraska a majority of three-fifths of 
each house is necessary. 

Thirteen of the states require some action of two 
successive legislatures for the submission of amend¬ 
ments to the people. In New York an amendment 
may be proposed in either house at any session by 
a majority vote and upon approval by a majority vote 
in both houses in the succeeding session can be sub¬ 
mitted to the electors. 

Our experience in Indiana naturally suggests that 
the new constitution ought to be much more elastic 
than the present one. It certainly seems reasonable 
that some initiative in the matter of amending the 
constitution should reside in the people directly. In 
view of the fact that the principle of referendum pre¬ 
vails so universally in approving constitutional 
changes it is difficult to understand why the same 
popular principle should not apply in initiating con¬ 
stitutional changes. 


CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 

Indiana is one of eleven states in the Union whose 
constitution makes no provision, whatever, for the call¬ 
ing of a constitutional convention. Nineteen states 
authorize the calling of a convention on referendum 
of the question to the people approved by a “majority 
voting thereon.” Eighteen states requires a “majority 
of the votes cast for candidates” at a general election. 
The tendency in recent years has been to change from 
a “majority on candidates” to a “majority on the 
proposition.” 

California, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, 
New Hampshire, New York and Ohio have made such 
a change. It should be a fixed principle of popular 
government that a majority of those who have enough 
public spirit and civic intelligence to “come out and 
vote” shall determine results in all elections. 

The method of proposing the question of calling a 
constitutional convention to the people differs in the 
different states. In some of them, as in New York, 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 103 


Maryland and Ohio, the legislature is required to sub¬ 
mit the question every twenty years. In others, as in 
.Nebraska, a three-fourths majority of both houses of 
the legislature may submit the question. In several 
states, a two-thirds majority of both houses may sub¬ 
mit the question at any session. California, Kansas, 
Illinois and Delaware are examples of this class. 

The Indiana Constitution of 1816 provided that the 
sense of the electors should be taken every twelve 
years on the question of calling a constitutional con¬ 
vention. Such elections were held in 1823, 1828, 1840, 
1846 and 1849. 

LET THE PEOPLE RULE. 

It would seem axiomatic that if the people are 
really to enjoy “at all times an indefeasible right to 
alter and reform their government” some definite pro¬ 
vision should be made in the constitution whereby they 
can actually proceed to do it. Of course an elastic 
method of amendment would relieve the necessity of 
frequent conventions, but it is probably true that even 
the most satisfactory method of amendment could not 
and should not obviate entirely the calling of a con¬ 
vention. 

The constitutional convention has been the sanest 
and safest institution of constructive civil progress in 
America. The states of the Union have held all told 
167 conventions, and the principle is firmly fixed in 
constitutional law and public policy as expressed by 
Jameson “that whenever a constitution needs a gen¬ 
eral revision a convention is indispensably necessary.” 


FEDERAL REGULATIONS. 

The general relations existing between the fed¬ 
eral government and the governments of the respec¬ 
tive states is expressed in the 10th amendment to the 
Constitution of the United States. 

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the 
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved 
to the States, respectively, or to the people.” 

The federal government, in so far as the consti¬ 
tution determines its nature, is a government of dele- 




104 NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 

gated powers, whereas a state government is a gov¬ 
ernment of residual powers. The grant of federal 
powers contained in the constitution seems large by 
express enumeration and the limitations upon the 
states seem extensive for the same reason. Yet when 
we consider the vast residuum of powers that re¬ 
main to the states consisting entirely of unenumer¬ 
ated matters,—in fact everything that is “left,” it 
must be recognized that the prerogatives of the state 
are indeed preponderant. 

Mr. Wilson in his book “The State” suggests the 
scope of state legislative power as follows: 

“All the civil and religious rights of our citizens depend 
upon state legislation; the education of the people is in the 
care of the states; with them rests the regulation of the 
suffrage; they prescribe the rules of marriage, and the legal 
relations of husband and wife, of parent and child; they 
determine the powers of masters over servants and the 
whole law of principal and agent, which is so vital a matter 
in all business transactions; they regulate partnership, debt 
and credit, and insurance; they constitute all corporations, 
both private and municipal, except such as specially fulfill 
the financial or other specific functions of the federal gov¬ 
ernment; they control the possession, distribution, and use 
of property, the exercise of trades, and all contract rela¬ 
tions; and they formulate and administer all criminal law, 
except only that which concerns crimes committed against 
the United States, on the high seas, or against the law of 
nations. Space would fail in which to enumerate the par¬ 
ticular items of this vast range of power; to detail its parts 
would be to catalogue all social and business relationships, 
to set forth all the foundations of law and order.” 

It is worthy of mention that even the subject of 
slavery was a matter existing entirely within the 
province of the states until the adopion of the thir¬ 
teenth amendment after the civil war. 

Control of municipal government and prohibition 
of the liquor traffic, for example, reside within the 
states. The fundamental function of fixing qualifica¬ 
tions for suffrage and elections also resides almost 
entirely in the states. The only provision of the fed¬ 
eral constitution affecting suffrage and elections in 
any manner is the fifteenth amendment. 

“The right of the citizens of the United States to vote 
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by 
any state, on account of race, color, or previous condition 
of servitude.” 





AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 105 


This provision does not grant the right of suf¬ 
frage, but prevents a discrimination on account of 
“race, color or previous condition of servitude.” 

STATE CONSTITUTIONS ELASTIC. 

Because of this vast scope of power which is “left” 
to the states covering such an infinite variety of sub¬ 
jects, it necessarily follows that a state constitution 
is naturally subject to greater need of changes result¬ 
ing from the fundamental changes wrought by prog¬ 
ress and growth, and must be frequently amended 
or revised in order to adequately meet the needs of 
the state through changing epochs. 

The states of the Union have had 167 constitu¬ 
tional conventions and practically all state constitu¬ 
tions have been very frequently amended. During 
our entire history, the United States has had but one 
constitution. This constitution has had seventeen im¬ 
portant and fundamental amendments. 

GUARANTEES RIGHTS OF CITIZENS. 

The United States Constitution provides in Sec. 1 
of Amendment XIV: 

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and 
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United 
States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall 
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges 
or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall 
any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within 
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’’ 

A further guarantee to citizens is found in Sec. 2 
of Article IV: 

“The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privi¬ 
leges and immunities of citizens in the several states.’’ 

It must appear from these provisions of the United 
States Constitution that no state could, if it would, 
abolish any fundamental right of its citizens, who are 
citizens of the United States. 

State and local officers take oath to uphold the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States. The Constitution of 
the United States contains in substantially identical 
language a declaration of the fundamental rights er- 


106 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


pressly provided in the Bill of Rights of the Indiana 
Constitution, and if the Bill of Rights of our Constitu¬ 
tion were omitted entirely, ancient safeguards would 
still exist and abide in the people through the guar¬ 
antees of the federal constitution. 

REPUBLICAN FORM. 

The Constitution of the United States in Section 4 
of Article IV provides: 

“The United States shall guarantee to every state in this 
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect 
them against invasion; and on application of the legisla¬ 
ture, or of the executive (when the legislature can not be 
convened), against domestic violence.” 


AS TO DELEGATES. 


There is much pertinent discussion as to the char¬ 
acter, qualifications, experience, personality, occupa¬ 
tion, etc., of the men who should be delegates to the 
Constitutional Convention. 

In this connection it is interesting to note the 
make-up of the Convention of 1850-51. The 150 dele¬ 
gates who comprised this convention were classified 
by occupations as follows: 


62 Farmers 
39 Lawyers 
16 Physicians 
11 Merchants and Tailors 
2 Manufacturers 
2 Surveyors 
1 Tanner 
1 Carpenter 
1 Millwright 


1 Bricklayer 
1 County Recorder 
1 Accountant 
1 Miller 
1 Editor 

1 Banker 

2 Teachers 

7 Occupations unknown 


These men came from all walks of life, and this 
was the principal merit of the membership of that 
great convention. 

Certainly our coming convention should have a 
similarly representative composition,—though, of 
course, primary emphasis need not be laid upon occu¬ 
pations. If the delegates are to be all of one main 
kind or character, then it is unnecessary to have 115. 
A very few—even one—would be enough, if they are 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 107 

not to bring to the convention a wide range of accu¬ 
mulated experience, knowledge, thought, and vision. 

Every candidate lor delegate, from whatever walk 
of life, should embody some strong convictions and 
some earnest purposes for the definite improvement 
of our forms of state and local government, and sure¬ 
ly every candidate should commend himself to his 
constituency by a most comprehensive study and in¬ 
vestigation of all possibilities of improvement. He 
should seek most diligently both before election and 
afterward to exchange views with his constituents in 
order that he may, indeed, be the people’s delegate. 

The, people should select no one, however promi¬ 
nent, whose main views and purposes as a delegate 
they do not fully understand. Of course, it “goes 
without saying” that party politics should receive no 
consideration, whatever, in the choice of candidates. 
This would be in contravention of the meaning of the 
constitutional convention act, and in utter violation 
of the spirit of the movement. 

This convention will be no picnic of politicians. It 
will be a great field for public service which, if really 
worth while, will demand much sacrifice on the part of 
those who give it. 

Ex-Governor Ralston, in declining to be a candi¬ 
date, gave very high and positive expression of the 
demands which should be made upon candidates when 
he said: 

“Any candidate should devote at least six months to a 
study of the questions that will be uppermost in the con¬ 
vention, and I have not the time to give to that study.” 

• 

The convention should contain our leading educa¬ 
tors, business men, professional men, farmers and 
laborers. They should be there as delegates of the 
people of Indiana. 


108 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


ONE IDEA VS. NO IDEA. 

A great deal of senseless fear is being expressed 
these days about the imaginary “man of one idea.” 
Such comment almost universally comes from men 
who have “no idea.” The exponents of “no ideas” 
say that the Constitutional Convention should not 
contain any delegate who is committed to “one idea.” 

The basis of merit in such a suggestion is entirely 
set aside by the limitations of its truthfulness. To 
begin with, a distinction should be recognized be¬ 
tween having “one idea” and “a dominarft idea.” 
History has been made and progress accomplished 
purely by “the man with a dominant idea.” Such 
were Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel 
Webster, Abraham Lincoln. 

The convention of 1851 included among its great¬ 
est members men of dominant ideas. Notable among 
these was the great educator, Robert Dale Owen, who 
was referred to in his day as a visionary, an extrem¬ 
ist—impractical and unsafe. He was perhaps the 
leading “forward looker” of that convention, and to¬ 
day, no one of that famous assemblage is quoted with 
more approval than he. 

Our coming Constitutional Convention should be 
made up of men who have dominant ideas. Surely 
they should not all possess the same “dominant idea.” 
But it certainly is no objection to a candidate for 
delegate that he has given great study and attention 
to some one important subject such as taxation re¬ 
form, court reform, reform in city government, or any 
other single reform. Rather should this specialized 
qualification commend him. It is only necessary that 
he be willing to give a fair hearing to others who have 
dominant ideas touching reforms other than his. 

This is exactly the manner in which a great consti¬ 
tution for Indiana will be written. The convention 
will be made up of men of lofty vision and broad un¬ 
derstanding, each of whom will bring something to 
add to the great accumulated wisdom which the con¬ 
vention will “assemble”. 

Beware of the candidate who has “no idea.” 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


109 


SEPARATE PROPOSALS. 

Pei haps the most significant single provision of 
the Constitutional Convention Act is the last sen¬ 
tence of Section I: 

Upon demand of forty-five delegates any question sub¬ 
mitted to the legal voters by the Convention shall be sub¬ 
mitted separately.” 

Briefly interpreted, this provision means that when 
the convention by a majority vote (58 delegates) 
shall decide that any proposal or question is to be sub¬ 
mitted by the convention either in the body of the con¬ 
stitution or with it as a separate proposal, then a 
minority of the delegates (45) can demand that the 
given question or proposal shall be submitted sepa¬ 
rately to be determined by the people upon its indi¬ 
vidual merits. 

The significance of this provision and the import¬ 
ance of separate proposals cannot be overemphasized. 
It is the safety valve of constitutional revision. The 
greatest danger of wreckage in the entire movement 
for constitutional revision lies in the possibility that 
the new constitution may be submitted to the people 
containing so many new and seriously controverted 
proposals that it will be rejected in toto. “Such a 
consummation is devoutly wished” by the enemies of 
all constitutional improvement. This can be com¬ 
pletely obviated by the policy of separate proposal. 

We have some splendid recent history in constitu¬ 
tion making illuminating this danger and the manner 
in which it may be obviated. 

The New York Convention in 1915 submitted its 
work of revision in one single complete document. 
This new constitution contained several very advanced 
proposals covering widely different phases of state 
and local government. Some of these new proposals 
were vigorously advocated by large bodies of people 
and vigorously opposed by other large bodies of peo¬ 
ple. Some other important reforms upon which sub¬ 
stantial bodies of voters wanted a hearing were not 
submitted by the convention at all. Consequently in 
the campaign for the adoption of the constitution, the 
accumulated opposition of the various groups,—each 


110 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


opposing some one or more proposals,—together with 
the opposition of those groups that were given no 
chance to vote upon the most important things they 
desired, was sufficient to overwhelmingly defeat the 
entire constitution. The people could only take it all 
or reject it all and the defeat of the entire constitu¬ 
tion was a significant protest against such a pro¬ 
cedure. 

The situation was well expressed by George W. 
Perkins in an open letter addressed to Elihu Root in 
the New York Commercial, October 30, 1915, in which 
he said in part: 

“I am wholly opposed to the demand made on the people 
by the Convention that the Constitution be adopted prac¬ 
tically in whole or not at all. Sixteen of the eighteen sec¬ 
tions are submitted in one vote, and these sixteen questions 
are the all-important part of the Constitution. I can think 
of but two reasons for the Convention having taken this 
course: First, that it had so little respect for the intelligence 
of the voters of this state that it did not believe them capable 
of wisely discriminating between the sixteen different sec¬ 
tions; or, second, that it feared the intelligence of the voters 
and realized that they would discriminate and that many 
of the proposed amendments, if submitted separately, would 
unquestionably be rejected. 

“Neither reason is creditable to the Convention. Which¬ 
ever of these reasons existed, the fact is that the voters 
have been deprived of their unquestioned right to select and 
reject as they might deem proper. 

“It seems clear to me that there is no answer to the 
serious objection to the manner of submitting the new Con¬ 
stitution. It is a fundamental weakness in the whole scheme. 
I appreciate that in a great document like a State Consti¬ 
tution there has to be a certain amount of give and take, 
and that half a loaf is sometimes better than no loaf at all, 
granted always that the half loaf be not poisoned. Why 
should a man who objects to the Conservation article, for 
example, but who favors the Short Ballot article, be forced 
to take the Conservation article to get the Short Ballot 
article? This illustration applies to many of the articles.” 

The Ohio Convention in 1912 proceeded on an 
entirely different theory. Forty-one separate and dis¬ 
tinct proposals were submitted to the people by the 
convention and the voters were given a chance to cast 
their votes for or against each one according to their 
views of its particular merits. A wide range of opin¬ 
ion and much discrimination was evidenced in the 
voting. Thirty-four of these proposals were carried 




AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 111 


by majorities ranging from 4,669 to 220,584 and seven 
were defeated by majorities ranging from 1,079 to 
87,455. Thus it was that the people of Ohio were able 
to procure for themselves a constitution which con 
tained what the majority of the people wanted and 
excluded w T hat they did not want. 

This certainly suggests a rational method whereby 
the people can really have a direct part in writing 
their own constitution. It is already apparent that a 
great range of widely differing proposals of seriously 
controverted nature will have to be considered by the 
Constitutional Convention of Indiana. It may be 
fairly said that the responsibility of deciding these 
proposals for the people of Indiana should not rest 
entirely with that great body of delegates. The 
responsibility and the duty will rest upon the conven¬ 
tion to fairly submit in bona fide form each of these 
main proposals for final determination by the people. 

The main body of the constitution, the organic 
frame work of government should be prepared by the 
convention. It should be a careful revision of our 
present constitution and can be submitted as a brief 
document of fundamental provisions shorter even 
than our present constitution. It ought not to con¬ 
tain any long list of rules, restrictions and prohibi¬ 
tions. It ought not to contain statutory matter. It 
ought to be short, containing only broad principles 
and leaving with the people the power through the 
basic procedure which it shall establish to meet situa¬ 
tions as they arise. 

Such a document can be prepared by the delegates 
and on submission to the people will not fail of adop¬ 
tion. 

Then there should be submitted with this funda¬ 
mental document all specially contested provisions 
prepared so that they may be adopted or rejected and 
still leave the constitution harmonious and unim¬ 
paired. 

The adoption of our new or revised constitution 
should not be made to depend either upon the strength 
or the weakness of any single proposed reform. Can¬ 
didates for delegates to the convention can commend 
themselves to the broad and fair sense of all the peo¬ 
ple of Indiana by clearly setting forth their willing¬ 
ness to fairly and separately submit each important 


112 ‘ ' ' NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 

propQsal. It does not follow that a delegate or that 
the majority of delegates in the convention should 
themselves be in favor of the final adoption of each 
or any of the new proposals which are submitted sepa¬ 
rately. The responsibility remains with the people, 
where it properly belongs, to determine finally 
whether or not these contested reforms shall be ulti¬ 
mately adopted. 

The responsibility will rest upon the convention 
and upon each individual delegate to see to it that the 
people of Indiana really have a fair chance to write 
into the new constitution what they want and to reject 
the things which they do not want. 


REGISTRATION. 

The special registration which is to be held this 
year (1917) for the purpose of enrolling the names of 
voters who will be eligible to participate in the election 
of delegates to the Constitutional Convention will 
begin on June 22 and continue for sixty days, ending 
on August 20. No person will be permitted to vote 
for delegates unless he is registered. Even voters 
whose names appear on the permanent registration 
lists heretofore in use will be obliged to re-register. 
The registration will take place at the court house, in 
some room to be provided by the county commission¬ 
ers. The registration board consists of the county clerk 
and two other persons appointed by the clerk, one 
from each of the two leading political parties. The 
actual work of registering is done by a clerk of regis¬ 
tration and a deputy clerk of registration appointed 
by the registration board. There are two ways in 
which a voter may register. He. may appear in person 
at .the court house and fill out the necessary blanks 
which will be supplied to him by the registration 
clerks, or he may fill out the blanks and have them 
sworn to before a notary public and mail or send 
the blank and the affidavit by messenger to the regis¬ 
tration clerk. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 113 


CONSTITUTIONAL PROGRESS. 

Indiana has a goodly fellowship in her new consti¬ 
tution movement. It is very evident that we are in a 
constitution-making epoch in the United States, as 
shown by the simultaneous calling of constitutional 
conventions in several states. The following article is 
copied entire from ‘‘Equity,” April 1917: 

“STATE GOVERNMENTS GOING INTO DRYDOCK.” 

Cheering news from the watch tower for the multitude 
absorbed in the problems of daily life! Far and wide over 
the country can now be seen the sure signs of a healthy 
dissatisfaction with existing forms and processes of govern¬ 
ment for the states of our Union. A variety of antiquated 
and outworn ships of state are soon to be overhauled and 
remodeled. 

In no less than ten states has legislative provision been 
made either for the holding of constitutional conventions 
or for the submission of a proposition for such a conven¬ 
tion to the voters. For convenient reference we summarize 
the facts about these conventions or convention proposals, 
taking them in the order of their occurrence, as follows: 

Massachusetts: Election of delegates on non-partisan 
plan in May; convention to meet on June 6, 1917. 

Tennessee: Submission of proposal and choice of dele¬ 
gates at special election in July next; convention ,if favored, 
to be held in October, 1917. 

Arkansas: A convention definitely called by legislature 
to meet on November 19, 1917; election of delegates on 
June 26 next. 

Indiana: A convention definitely called by legislative 

act to meet on January 8, 1918; election of delegates on non¬ 
partisan plan, September 18, 1917. 

Texas: Submission of proposal and choice of delegates 
at election, November 17 next; convention, if favored, to be 
held in January, 1918. 

New Hampshire: Convention ordered by voters at No¬ 
vember, 1916, election, to meet in June, 1918. 

North Dakota: By initiative petition a new constitution 
to be submitted to the voters in November, 1918. 

Illinois: Submission of proposal at general election, No¬ 
vember, 1917; convention, if favored, to meet in 1918. 

Washington: Submission of proposal to voters at gen¬ 
eral election, November, 1918; convention, if favored, to be 
held in 1919 (date not given). 

North Carolina: Submission to the voters at the gen¬ 
eral election next year (1918), proposition to hold a con¬ 
stitutional convention in May, 1919. 


114 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


MODERN SPIRIT IN CONSTITU¬ 
TION MAKING. 

It cannot be doubted that the world is trembling 
on the verge of a new era and it is certain that the 
calling of a Constitutional Convention for Indiana, 
attended by the enfranchisement of the better half of 
our citizenship, heralds the beginning of a new civic 
and political epoch in the history of our common¬ 
wealth. Surely we can expect that something of the 
progressive spirit of the day and the optimism of the 
modern era will be embodied in our new constitution. 

The old idea of constitutions and charters was nec¬ 
essarily characterized by the fact that they were grac¬ 
ious grants or specially conferred privileges handed 
down from superior to inferiors. They partook of 
the nature of hard wrung concessions wrested from a 
tyrannical ruler by his rebellious subjects. Such was 
Magna Charta. 

So it is that even to this day our constitutions bear 
too much of the imprint of distrust and fear. They 
have too many restrictions, limitations and prohibi¬ 
tions. Proceeding upon the theory of “original sin in 
politics,” they go far toward providing what public 
officials cannot do. They even err in the direction of 
“saving the people from themselves.” In attempting 
to forestall wrongs that might be done, they tend to 
establish handicaps that prevent the people from 
accomplishing things that ought to be done. 

A constitution written in the light of this day with 
all the accumulated benefits of past experience will 
preserve every fundamental right that adheres in older 
constitutions, and will apply and interpret these 
rights in the spirit of modern times and with the new 
vision which is vouchsafed this fortunate generation. 

The new constitution of Indiana with which we 
shall make our start into the second century of our 
existence as a commonwealth will surely mark a dis¬ 
tinct forward step in constitution making. It should 
express complete faith in the people and repose confi¬ 
dence in their public servants. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


115 


CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION OF 
EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLA¬ 
TIVE DEPARTMENTS. 

Abstract of Address by Gov. James P. Goodrich 

at 

NEW CONSTITUTION DISCUSSION SUPPER 

Held Under Auspices of The Citizens League of In¬ 
diana at Fort Wayne, Ind., March 9, 1917. 

YY hile our present constitution was well suited to 
the age in which it was made, and in many respects 
adapted to meet the changing condition of the time, 
yet the state has found itself hampered more and more 
by the limitations of the constitution; found itself 
unable to serve the people and meet the many social, 
economic and fiscal questions that confront it. 

“The call has been issued. The event is one of first 
importance; the question of whether or not the consti¬ 
tution will be so drawn as to fully meet the situation 
will depend much on the educational campaign that is 
carried on between now and next September, and on 
even until the end of the deliberations of the con¬ 
vention. 

“To restate the basic law of the state, to declare 
anew the principles of our government, is the most im¬ 
portant function of the state, and it is well this meet¬ 
ing should be held tonight, the opening gun in the 
campaign of education; that we should, as citizens of 
a common state, discuss the questions with which the 
convention shall have to deal. 

PERSONNEL IMPORTANT. 

“The most important question of all is the person¬ 
nel of the convention; it should be made up of men, 
not only familiar with the constitutions of the past, 
acquainted with the history of our own government 
and the rise and fall of nations, but of men who realize 
the conditions with which this day and generation have 
to deal and with prophetic vision look into the future 
and realize to some extent, the problems that will con¬ 
front us during the next fifty years. Me” who under- 


116 NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 

stand that the chief aim of a democracy is not to pro¬ 
duce goods, but men; who realize that the true happi¬ 
ness and prosperity of a people is measured not alone 
by the sum of its material prosperity but by the abil¬ 
ity with which it is able to so control its social forces 
and develop its economic resources as to bring peace, 
happiness and plenty to the great masses of its peo¬ 
ple; men who realize that the chief pride of a state is 
not in the few who can number their wealth by mil¬ 
lions but by the degree with which prosperity is dis¬ 
seminated among the great body of its constituents. 
So I wish to say they must be men who realize that 
the new constitution should not be made up of articles 
declaring what the state can not do but rather it should 
state the broad, underlying fundamental principles 
upon which the government of a free people must rest 
and trust to the wisdom of legislative assemblies to 
meet and solve the problems that arise with each day 
and generation; must be men who realize that it is not 
so important to set the limit on the powers of govern¬ 
ment as it is to set free the inherent powers that al¬ 
ways rest in the people in order that they, through 
their legislative assemblies may fashion a government 
that can serve the people under all conditions and all 
circumstances. 

SHOULD CENTRALIZE POWER. 

"When our fathers adopted the constitution they 
framed one of checks and balances, clearly defining the 
powers resting upon judicial, legislative and executive 
branches. Suffering as they had from the unwarranted 
use of the power of kings and emperors; fearful that 
the rulers selected by them at some future day might 
encroach upon the liberties of the people, they sought 
in every way to limit their authority and hedge about 
those in high places so that they were powerless to 
commit wrong and oppression. 

"The inevitable tendency of our own time is away 
from this diffusion of power, the distribution of re¬ 
sponsibility and toward the centralization of power in 
the hands of an executive responsible directly to the 
people who selected him. 

"And so I take it that the men who frame the con¬ 
stitution to be submitted to our people will in response 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 117 


to the unmistakable demand of the time fashion a con¬ 
stitution that will set free the activities of the state, 
place larger power in the hands of the general as¬ 
sembly and centralize that power to a greater degree 
in the executive branch of their government. 

We are realizing more and more that while a 
democracy is of enormous value, because it excites a 
lively interest among the people in their government 
and to that extent increases the general intelligence, 
yet in the past it has been notoriously inefficient be¬ 
cause of the fact tha under our constitution the execu¬ 
tive charged with the administration of affairs has had 
but little power over the manner of the expenditure of 
public money or the direction of the ordinary business 
affairs of the state. Efficiency and economy in the 
conduct of the state’s business can only come through 
the adoption of the budget system. 


HAVE NOT TIME TO WEIGH BILLS. 

“Under the present constitution, all supply bills 
must originate in the house. The executive has little 
control. As a result 150 men not familiar with the 
business of the state, in sixty-one days must pass upon 

all bills. 

“No other country of the world has our legislative 
system. When our present constitution was passed 
there were not so many problems and not so much 
money to be expended. Now a single state institution 
spends more money than the entire state did then. It 
was possible at that time for the legislators in sixty- 
one days to pass upon appropriations. 

“With eighteen different institutions outside the 
educational system requiring twelve million dollars a 
year, it is absolutely impossible for the general assem¬ 
bly, I care not how efficient the membership may be, 
to frame economical bills. 

“The last general assembly, and the members who 
are here tonight will verify this, that the great sup¬ 
ply bills were not presented until the last week of the 
session and in three days the legislators appropriated 
between twelve and fifteen million dollars. 

“The budget system, as applied to any great cor¬ 
poration, should require all supply bills to originate 
with the chief executive. I feel that the constitutional 


118 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


convention should make the fundamental law so that 
the supply bills should be introduced in the first ten 
days. 

GOVERNOR SHOULD EXPLAIN BILLS. 

‘‘The executive should be not only empowered to 
do so, but should be required to go on the floor and 
defend the appropriation bills, section by section. The 
fundamental law should be restated so that the legis¬ 
lature can not raise the appropriations a penny, but 
may reduce them any amount. The chief executive 
should have the power of vetoing such legislation by 
sections. 

“In the appropriation bills which were passed in 
the last three or four days, salaries were increased, new 
offices created, offices abolished and the executive must 
approve the whole bill or call a special session. May 
I illustrate a few points. In speaking of these I am 
not reflecting on any party. I found in one section 
that a new place had been created with a salary of 
$3,000; in another that one new office had been created 
and three salaries increased. 

“I called in the head of that department and asked 
if the new man was needed. He said “no.” I asked 
if the salary increases were needed. He said they were 
not. I asked him if he had the provisions introduced 
and he said he had not. Twenty-four hours afterward, 
I found that a clerk had asked for them and that they 
had been granted. 

“In another instance, after a hard fight, I had a 
$3,000 appropriation that was not needed cut out by 
the house committee. It was put in by the senate and 
is in the appropriation bill today. There was no need 
for it. Yet I am powerless. Such instances are not 
confined to one party. 

GOVERNOR IS HELPLESS. 

“I have no hesitancy in saying that no business 
man could carry on such a business longer than sixty 
days. Your governor is as helpless as a child. The 
other day, the chief deputy in one of the departments 
came into my office. I had something I wanted done. 
I asked him if he could do it. I told him I did not 
want to take him from his duties. He-answered he 




AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 119 

had nothing to do and 'it’s a shame to take the money/ 
\ et he is on the pay roll of the state. The same busi¬ 
ness methods would drive any other business into 
bankruptcy in sixty days. 

“The budget system is opposed on the grounds that 
it would center too much power in the hands of the 
governor. The governor ought to be given this cen¬ 
tralization of power, and further provision should be 
made that he prepare the bill at least thirty days before 
the legislature meets. I suggest that in restating the 
fundamental law some one should be designated by 
the opposite political party to criticise the appropria¬ 
tion bill and tear it to pieces. The budget should be 
one of the first measures considered and should be dis¬ 
cussed in public, so the people will know what is being 
done with their money. Then you would get a real 
budget and put responsibility where it belongs—in 
your governor. 

“Under the present system boards having open 
appropriations may spend them at their own sweet 
will. They have too much power. Under the present 
system there is little the governor can do for economy. 

“The governor appoints the state board of tax com¬ 
missioners. It has a secretary. A man was in that 
place who had been there for years. His knowledge 
was of vital importance. He was needed there. One 
day I read in a paper that he had been discharged to 
make room for a republican. I called the board mem¬ 
bers to my office and asked them about it. One of 
them said the man had been discharged ‘because we 
want a republican in there/ I got them to reconsider 
the action. But I had no control. I induced them to 
do it as a matter of courtesy. In the last thirty days 
of my administration I can appoint the tax board. 

PEOPLE DO NOT RULE. 

“Demagogues will say, ‘let the people rule/ The 
governor should not have so much power. If you 
want a governor to welcome the conventions which 
come to Indianapolis and in the summer time to ad¬ 
dress old settlers’ meetings and things like that then 
you have the ideal system. If you want such a sys¬ 
tem why don’t you elect a governor who can make 
a good speech without regard to whether he knows 
anything about business? 



120 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


“You should give power to the governor. Don’t tie 
his hands. As it is now the people do not rule. Now 
you must hunt out 150 men to find out what they did 
and then you can’t fix the responsibility. Look up the 
roll-calls and you can’t find out who was responsible 
for appropriations, because it is seldom there is a roil- 
call when a bill is considered section by section. Go 
through the increases in salaries, and the new offices 
and you can’t fix the responsibility. 

“We will never have efficiency in Indiana until 
you put the power in the hands of the governor. Presi¬ 
dent Stone has spoken of the state superintendent of 
public instruction. Of course, he should be appointed. 
My sincere belief is that only three officials should be 
elected; governor, lieutenant-governor and auditor. 

“The people do not rule. It is pure demagoguery. 
I will bet there is not a democrat here who can tell 
who he voted for state geologist two years ago. 
Scarcely any attention is paid to such offices. The 
state has six legal departments, wasting $10,000 to 
$20,000 a year. If the people should elect such officers 
why not custodian of the state house, janitors and 
spittoon cleaners. 

“It seems to me that the more we study it, revere 
it as we may, the more we find the present constitu¬ 
tion does not meet the needs of today. 

“Under our present system the state can not ad¬ 
minister the needs of our state and what is the purpose 
of a state if not to administer the needs of the people? 

SHOULD CONSERVE COAL. 


“Let me direct your attention to conservation. 
Now we think of conservation as saving the water 
power or timber of some far western state. Yet in 
the state of Indiana we are burning wastefully a mil¬ 
lion tons of coal each year, God’s own creation, coal 
which we will need in the time to come. It would be 
impossible in Germany. 

“The time will come when people will pay twice 
what coal is worth because the state is powerless to 
conserve it. We must free the state to give it the 
power for which it exists. 

“Germany sends an inspector into the mine. He 
orders every possible ton to be taken out and fixes the 



121 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 

maximum price. 

\ et we in Indiana with coal at our very door, be¬ 
cause of the present system, will be compelled to pay 
an increase of 100 per cent for coal when the cost of 
mining it has increased hardly one cent since last year. 

“I am perfectly willing to trust to the great com¬ 
mon sense of the people because I know they are sound 
at heart. I believe that out of the constitutional con¬ 
vention will come a constitution to meet the demands 
of the times.” 

“NEW TIMES DEMAND NEW MEASURES.” 

New times demand new measures and new men; 

The world advances and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our father’s day were best; 

And, doubtless, after us some purer scheme 
Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, 

Made wiser by the steady growth of truth. 

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; 

Then let it come; I have no dread of what 
Is called for by the instinct of mankind. 

Nor think I that God’s world would fall apart 
Because we tear a parchment more or less. 

Truth is eternal, but her effluence, 

With endless change, is fitted to the hour; 

Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect 
The promise of the future, not the past. 

(James Russell Lowell.) 


THE INDIANA FORUM, ed¬ 
ited by Horace H. Herr, published 
in Indianapolis, is publishing 
much valuable and argumenta ; - 
tive matter on the Initiative and 
Referendum, Social Justice and 
Tax Reform. As a journal of gen¬ 
eral information on the constitu¬ 
tion movement it is of unusual in¬ 
terest. 






122 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 

ACT. 

A Bill for an Act to provide for the election of dele¬ 
gates to a convention to revise the constitution of 
the state and providing for the assembling of the 
convention and preparations incidental to the con¬ 
duct of the convention and making appropriation 
therefor. 

(Approved February 1, 1917.) 

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the 
State of Indiana, That an election shall be held on the third 
Tuesday in September, 1917, at which delegates shall be 
elected who shall constitute a convention for the purpose of 
revising the constitution of the State of Indiana and which 
new constitution shall be submitted to the legal voters of the 
State of Indiana to be by them ratified or rejected at such 
time and in such manner as the convention may determine. 
Upon demand of forty-five (45) delegates any question sub¬ 
mitted to the legal voters by the convention shall be sub¬ 
mitted separately. 

Sec. 2. The convention shall consist of one hundred and 
fifteen (115) delegates. One hundred (100) delegates shall be 
elected by the state representative districts, each district 
electing as many as there are representatives from the dis¬ 
trict,and the remaining fifteen (15) shall be elected by the 
state at large. No person shall be a delegate, who, at the 
time of his election, is not a citizen of the United States; 
nor any one who has not been for two years next preceding 
his election an inhabitant of the state, and for one year next 
preceding his election an inhabitant of the county in which 
he resides at the time of his election. The election shall be 
proclaimed by the sheriffs of the several counties and shall in 
all respects, except as provided in this act, be conducted, the 
r turns thereof made and the result canvassed and certified as 
to delegates at large in the manner provided by law in case 
of the election of state officers and as to district delegates in 
the same manner as the vote for state representatives is can¬ 
vassed. All laws regulating elections and prescribing penal¬ 
ties for violation, so far as the same are applicable, shall be 
in force in said election of delegates the same as are pro¬ 
vided by law in the case of general elections. The election 
officials shall consist of one inspector and two (2) clerks 
appointed by the judge of the circuit court of the county at 
east ten (10) days before the election and shall have the 
same powers and receive the same compensation as the in¬ 
spector and clerks receive at a general election. 

Sec. 3. Candidates for members of the constitutional con¬ 
vention shall be nominated by nominating petitions only. 

Sec. 4. Any legal voter having the qualifications required 
by section two (2) of this act may be nominated for delegate 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


123 


to the constitutional convention for a representative district 
upon a petition in writing filed with the secretary of the state 
not less than thirty (30) nor more than sixty (60) days prior 
to the day of election. Such petition shall be signed by not 
fewer than two hundred (200) qualified voters of the repre¬ 
sentative district. Any legal voter having the qualifications 
required by section two (2) of this act may be nominated for 
delegate at large to the constitutional convention, upon a 
petition filed in like manner with the secretary of state and 
signed by not fewer than fifty (50) voters residing in each 
congressional district of the state. 

Sec. 5. Such petition shall contain a provision to the 
effect that each signer thereto pledges himself to support and 
vote for the candidate or candidates whose nomination is 
therein requested. Each elector signing a petition shall sign 
such petition in his own handwriting and shall add to his 
signature his place of residence in his own handwriting 
(unless he cannot write and his signature is made by mark), 
which shall include street and number when there is a street 
and number. No elector may sign his name to more than 
one nominating petition for each office to be filled; and where 
an elector has signed his name to more than one petition, his 
name shall not be counted on any of the petitions. Nothing 
herein shall be construed, however, to prevent more than one 
petition from being signed by the same person up to the num¬ 
ber of members of the convention for whom he will be en¬ 
titled to vote. 

Sec. 6. Each petition may consist of more than one paper, 
but each separate sheet shall have at the top a statement in¬ 
dicating its purport and shall be sworn to by at least two 
(2) signers who are resident freeholders that it is bona fide 
in every respect to the best of their knowledge, and the cer¬ 
tificates of such oaths shall be annexed. 

Sec. 7. Besides containing the names of the candidates, 
all petitions shall specify as to each candidate. 

1. That he is a candidate for the office of delegate or 
delegate at large to the constitutional convention. 

2. His place of residence, with the street number thereof, 
if any. 

3. A declaration by the candidate that he will qualify 
if elected. 

Sec. 8. When filed, the petition shall be preserved and be 
open under proper regulations to public inspection, and if 
they are in conformity with the provisions of this act, they 
shall be deemed valid unless objection thereto is duly made 
in writing within five (5) days after the filing thereof. Such 
objections or other questions arising in the course of the 
nomination of said candidate shall be considered by the sec¬ 
retary of state and his decision shall be final. 

Sec. 9. The names of candidates for delegates to the con¬ 
stitutional convention, nominated as provided herein, shall be 
placed on one independent and separate ballot, without any 
emblem or party designation. 




124 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Sec. 10. The ballot for delegates to the constitutional 
convention shall be prepared by the state board of election 
commissioners as now provided by law for ballots for general 
elections. The ballot for delegates from representative dis¬ 
tricts and at large shall be printed separately. The whole 
number of ballots to be printed for each district shall be 
divided by the number of candidates for members of the con¬ 
stitutional convention from the district and the quotient so 
obtained shall be the number of ballots in each series of 
ballots to be printed. The names of candidates shall be 
arranged in alphabetical order in the first series of ballots 
printed. The first name shall be placed last and the next 
series printed, and the process shall be repeated in the same 
manner until each name shall have been first. These ballots 
shall then be combined in tablets with no two of the same 
order of names together, except where there is but one can¬ 
didate. The ballots for the election of delegates at large 
shall be prepared in like manner. 

Sec. 11. The person or persons in each representative 
district equal to the number of delegates to which a repre¬ 
sentative district is entitled and the fifteen (15) candidates 
for delegates at large receiving the highest number of votes 
shall be declared elected delegates to the constitutional con- 
v -iition. 

Sec. 12. Any vacancy occurring among the delegates 
from the representative districts by death, resignation or 
otherwise shall be filled in the same manner provided by law 
for filling a vacancy in the office of state representative. Any 
vacancy occurring among the delegates at large shall be 
filled by election by the remaining delegates at large. 

Sec. 13. Delegates who shall be elected as aforesaid shall 
assemble in convention in the hall of the house of represen¬ 
tatives at the capitol in the city of Indianapolis on the second 
Tuesday in January, nineteen hundred and eighteen (1918) 
and organize by electing a president and all other necessary 
officers. It shall be the duty of the secretary of state to at¬ 
tend the convention on the convening thereof; to call over 
the list of delegates elected; receive the credentials of dele¬ 
gates, and generally, to perform the duties of the organiza¬ 
tion that are usually discharged by the officer whose duty it 
is by law to attend to the organization of the house of repre¬ 
sentatives of this state at the commencement of its session; 
and should the secretary of state fail to attend in person or 
by deputy by ten (10) o’clock a. m. on said day, then it shall 
be the duty of the auditor of state to attend for such purpose. 
The superintendent of public buildings and grounds shall 
properly prepare the hall of the house of representatives for 
the use of the convention. 

Sec. 14. Members of the convention shall enjoy the same 
privileges and immunities in going to, attending upon, and 
returning from the convention that the members elected to 
and attending on the General Assembly are entitled to by the 
constitution or by the law. The cjnvention shall be the 







AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 125 


judge of the election and qualifications of its members; and 
shall possess the same power to adopt rules, expel a member 
for disorderly conduct, and punish contempt, that are now 
exercised by the house of representatives of the General 
Assembly in similar cases. A majority of the delegates 
elected shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller 
number may adjourn from day to day, and take measures to 
compel the attendance of absent members. 

Sec. 15. The delegates to the convention shall receive the 
same mileage and per diem while attending upon the sitting 
of said convention as members of the General Assembly are 
allowed by law, and all the officers, employes and attendants 
shall be paid a compensation to be fixed by the convention; 
all of which expenses, together with such other expenses as 
may be incurred by the convention, shall be certified by the 
president of the convention, and shall be paid by the treas¬ 
urer of state out of any fund not otherwise appropriated, on 
the warrant of the auditor of state, and an amount sufficient 
to cover such mileage, compensation and expenses is hereby 
appropriated. 

Sec. 16. The secretary of state and all other officers shall 
furnish the convention with all such papers, statements, 
statistical information, copies of records of public documents 
in their possession as the convention may order or require; 
and it shall be the duty of the proper officer or officers to 
furnish the members of the convention with all stationery as 
is usually furnished the General Assembly while in session, 
which shall be paid for on the certificate of the president, in 
like manner as provided in the preceding section. 

Sec. 17. It shall be the duty of each state, county and 
municipal officer in the state, to transmit without delay any 
information at his command which the convention, by resolu¬ 
tion or otherwise, may require of him; and if any officer shall 
fail or refuse to comply with any requirement of this section, 
he shall forfeit and pay the sum of three hundred dollars 
($300) to be recovered in any court of competent jurisdiction, 
in an action in the name of the State of Indiana, by the attor¬ 
ney-general, whose duty it shall be to prosecute all cases of 
delinquency under this section coming to his knowledge or 
of which he shall be informed. The bureau of legislative 
and administrative information shall collect, compile and pre¬ 
pare such information and data as it may deem useful to the 
delegates and the public, including digests of constitutional 
provisions of other states and an annotation of the present 
constitution, and the same shall be printed and paid for out 
of the appropriation for the commissioners of the public print¬ 
ing, binding and stationery, and distributed in such manner 
as the bureau shall determine in order to give the same the 
widest possible circulation. The bureau shall, in like manner, 
publish and distribute twenty thousand (20,000) copies of the 
present constitution of Indiana. The clerical and other ex¬ 
penses of the bureau not exceeding three thousand dollars 
($3,000) is hereby appropriated to be available April 1, 1917. 


126 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


The Indiana historical commission shall furnish for the use 
of each member a copy of the volume entitled “Constitution 
Making in Indiana” printed by the commission if the same 
shall be available. 

Sec. 18. It shall be the duty of the secretary of state to 
cause immediately twenty thousand (20,000) copies of this 
act to be printed and distributed to the auditors of the coun¬ 
ties in proportion to the population of the several counties; 
the auditor of the county shall deliver one or more of the 
copies to each inspector of election in the county, appointed 
as provided in this act. 

NOTES. 

The election on September 18, 1917, will be non-partisan 
and special. It is to be held for the sole purpose of selecting 
115 delegates to the Constitutional Convention,—100 by state 
representative districts and 15 at large. 

Delegates must be legal voters and citizens of the United 
States, and must have resided in the state two years and in 
the district one year preceding the election. 

Candidates shall be nominated by nominating petitions 
only, and the names of all candidates shall be placed on one 
independent and separate ballot without any emblem or party 
designation. Nominating petitions must be filed between 
July 20th and August 19th, 1917. 

The names of candidates shall be placed on the ballot in 
alphabetical order, but the ballots shall be printed in series 
and by a process of rotation so that all candidates will be 
first on the ballot an equal number of times. 

Women can sign nominating petitions, women can vote 
for delegates, women can be candidates and women can vote 
upon the ratification or rejection of the new constitution and 
upon the approval or disapproval of each separate proposal 
submitted therewith. 

The voters of each district vote for at least one district 
delegate. The voters in Marion county vote for ten. All 
voters of the state vote for 15 at large. 

The convention will assemble in Indianapolis January 8, 
1918, and remain in session indefinitely. 

It will require the concurrence of a majority of the dele¬ 
gates (58) to determine upon the submission of any question 
to the voters, either in the constitution or apart from it; but 
when 58 have agreed that a given question shall be sub¬ 
mitted, then 45 delegates may demand that the question be 
submitted separately to the voters to be determined upon its 
own merits. This provision is favorable to the separate de¬ 
termination by the people of all new proposals of a seriously 
controverted nature. 





and MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 127 


CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE 

OF INDIANA. 


1851 


With Analysis and Comment by Charles Kettleborough, 
Legislative Draftsman in Indiana Bureau of 
Legislative Information. 


PREAMBLE. 

To the end that justice be established, public order main¬ 
tained, and liberty perpetuated: We, the people of the 
State of Indiana, grateful to Almighty God for the free 
exercise of the right to choose our own form of govern¬ 
ment, do ordain this constitution: 


ARTICLE I. 

Bill of Rights. 

Section 1. We declare that all men are created equal; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un¬ 
alienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness; that all power is inherent in the peo¬ 
ple; and that all free governments are, and of right ought 
to be, founded on their authority, and instituted for their 
peace, safety, and well-being. For the advancement of these 
ends, the people have at all times an indefeasible right to 
alter and reform their government. 

Section 1, is adopted, with minor changes, from the Declara- 
tion of Independence, for which we are indebted to the fertile 
and illuminating political genius of Thomas Jefferson. Its 
sentiment is largely French; liberty, equality and fraternity 
were the watchwords of the French Revolution; the mind of 
Jefferson had been profoundly impressed by the teachings of 
the brilliant group of literary men who produced the French 
Revolution. In 1850, the delegates who drafted this section 
were divided into two hostile factions over the baffling negro 
question, a disturbing element which has now happily passed 
away. The doctrine of natural rights, which was invented 
by Rousseau, and which has long since been abandoned as an 
obsolete theory, is still present in this section. The American 
doctrine of equality does not mean physical, or moral or in¬ 
tellectual equality, but political equality which should afford 
to each person an opportunity to realize his fullest fruition 
compatible with his native ability. 

Sec. 2. All men shall be secured in their natural right 
to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their 
own consciences. 

Sec. 3. No law shall, in any case whatever, control the 
free exercise and enjoyment of religious opinions, or inter¬ 
fere with the rights of conscience. 





128 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Sec. 4. No preference shall be given, by law, to any 
creed, religious society or mode of worship; and no man 
shall be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of 
worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent. 

Sec. 5. No religious test shall be required as a qualifica¬ 
tion for any office of trust or profit. 

Sec. 6. No money shall be drawn from the treasury for 
the benefit of any religious or theological institution. 

Sec. 7. No person shall be rendered incompetent as a 
witness, in consequence of his opinion on matters of religion. 

Sections 2 to 7 inclusive constitute a native American doc¬ 
trine of religious freedom, first realized in this country, but 
now an assured fact in all the great nations of Europe. By 
these provisions, absolute security is guaranteed to persons of 
all religious beliefs, with full right to participate in all poli¬ 
tical and judicial proceedings. They likewise prohibit any 
established church and divorce religion and politics. 

Sec. 8. The mode of administering an oath or affirma¬ 
tion shall be such as may be most consistent with, and bind¬ 
ing upon, the conscience of the person to whom such oath or 
affirmation may be administered. 

Sec. 9. No law shall be passed restraining the free in¬ 
terchange of thought and opinion, or restricting the right 
to speak, write, or print, freely, on any subject whatever; 
but for the abuse of that right every person shall be 
responsible. 

Sec. 10. In all prosecutions for libel, the truth of the 
matters alleged to be libelous may be given in justification. 

Sections 9 and 10 guarantee the freedom of the press; no 
newspaper can be suppressed for expressing opinions which 
the government may take exceptions to; but no newspaper or 
individual may promulgate statements which are libellous. 

Sec. 11. The right of the people to be secure in their 
persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable 
search or seizure shall not be violated, and no warrant shall 
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirma¬ 
tion, and particularly describing the place to be searched, 
and the person or thing to be seized. 

Where public welfare or interest are involved, reasonable 
requirements for examination of books, papers and accounts 
of individuals and corporations may be made. See 127 Ind. 109 
and 166 Ind. 631. 

Sec. 12. All courts shall be open; and every man, for 
injury done to him, in his person, property or reputation, 
shall have remedy by due course of law. Justice shall be 
administered freely and without purchase; completely, and 
without denial; speedily, and without delay. 

Section 12 prevents star chamber sesions of courts; all 
trials must be public and no person may be condemned and 
sentenced without a trial. The free, complete and speedy 
administration of justice has not always worked well in prac¬ 
tice as poor people charged with the violation of the law are 
still at a disadvantage. Several cities have recently taken a 
forward step by providing for a public defender, who is a com- 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 129 


petent lawyer, paid by the city to defend poor persons against 
whom any charges have been made. This section should be so 
amended as to authorize the General Assembly to enact a com¬ 
pulsory workman s compensation law and to define hazardous 
employments including those which produce occupational 
diseases. 

With our present outgrown court system making it impos¬ 
sible to complete many important cases for several years, with 
a system of technicalities and delays which seriously hinder 
the “administration of justice” and place an almost impossible 
burden of expense upon litigants, it may well be doubted as 
to whether the high-sounding phraseology of this section has 
any vital meaning in Indiana today. One of our leading histor¬ 
ians has recently declared that ‘justice is unconstitutional in 
Indiana.’ 

Sec. 13. In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall 
have the right to a public trial, by an impartial jury in the 
county in which the offense shall have been committed; to 
be heard by himself and counsel to demand the nature and 
cause of the accusation against him, and to have a copy 
thereof; to meet the witnesses face to face, and to have 
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor. 

Sec. 14. No person shall be put in jeopardy twice for the 
same offense. No person, in any criminal prosecution, shall 
be compelled to testify against himself. 

This has reference to prosecution for the same criminal act. 
A person may be sued in a civil action growing out of the 
offense. See 156 Ind. 194 and cases cited. 

Under the second sentence of this section, a defendant in a 
criminal case is not only protected against being called to the 
witness stand but, in addition, the prosecution is prohibited 
from making any comment whatever as to the failure or re¬ 
fusal of the defendant to testify. A strong opinion is growing 
among courts and lawyers that this is a serious obstacle to 
the discovery of all the truth in a criminal trial, and operates 
to defeat justice. 

The constitution of Ohio provides: 

No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a 
witness against himself; but his failure to testify may be con¬ 
sidered by the court and jury and may be made the subject of 
comment by counsel. 

Sec. 15. No person arrested, or confined in jail, shall be 
treated with unnecessary rigor. 

Sec. 16. Excessive bail shall not be required. Excessive 
fines shall not be imposed. Cruel and unusual punishment 
shall not be inflicted. All penalties shall be proportioned 
to the nature of the offense. 

It is largely a legislative question to determine whether a 
punishment is “cruel or unusual” or “proportioned to the of¬ 
fense.” See 45 Ind. 338, 133 Ind. 404, 157 Ind. 37. 

Sec. 17. Offenses, other than murder or treason, shall be 
bailable by sufficient sureties. Murder or treason shall not 
be bailable when the proof is evident, or the presumption 
strong. 

Sec. 18. The penal code shall be founded on the prin¬ 
ciples of reformation, and not of vindictive justice. 


130 NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 

This does not prohibit the death penalty. See 7 Ind. 332 
and 7 Ind. 338. The indeterminate sentence law is an attempt 

to carry out this section. See 149 Ind. 607. 

% 

Sec. 19. In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall 
have the right to determine the law and the facts. 

The theory that the jury should have the right to deter¬ 
mine the law in criminal cases is quite absurd; an average 
jury knows nothing about the law; the judge is supposed to 
be conversant with the law and it should be his duty, there¬ 
fore, and his alone, to determine the law. It is the province 
of the jury to determine the facts and they should be restricted 
to that function. 

Sec. 20. In all civil cases the right of trial by jury shall 
remain inviolate. 

By sections 13 and 20, the right of trial by jury is guar¬ 
anteed in criminal and civil cases. This doubtless means the 
jury as known to the common law, which consisted of twelve 
men. It is becoming increasingly doubtful whether jury trial 
under all circumstances is the best means of obtaining justice. 
Certainly the General Assembly should have authority to re¬ 
duce the number of jurors and to develop such other changes 
as may seem best calculated to achieve speedy and substantial 
justice. 

Sec. 21. No man’s particular services shall be demanded 
without just compensation. No man’s property shall be 
taken by law without just compensation; nor, except in case 
of the state, without such compensation first assessed and 
tendered. 

A long line of decisions construe this section especially re¬ 
lating to the taking of property without just compensation. 
In this the rights of private property are carefully guarded. 
See 155 Ind. 611, 161 Ind. 251, 163 Ind. 112. 

Sec. 22. The privilege of the debtor to enjoy the neces- 
ray comforts of life, shall be recognized by wholesome 
laws, exempting a reasonable amount of property from 
seizure or sale for the payment of any debt or liability here¬ 
after contracted; and there shall be no imprisonment for 
debt, except in case of fraud. 

Sec. 23. The General Assembly shall not grant to any 
citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, 
upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens. 

The provisions relative to the “due course of law” (section 
12) and special “privileges or immunities” are so vague and 
indefinite that they have not infrequently been so construed 
as to defeat and invalidate remedial legislation which was 
designed and could only be designed to operate on certain in¬ 
dustries and enterprises. It is unfortunate that a more definite 
wording cannot be adopted. 

Sec. 24. No ex post facto law, or law impairing the obli¬ 
gation of contract, shall ever be passed. 

An ex post facto law is one which makes an act unlawful 
which was lawful when committed, or adds to the punishment 
for an act or renders a conviction easier. See 152 Ind. 34. 







AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 131 


Sec. 25. No law shall be passed, the taking effect oi 
which shall be made to depend upon any authority, except 
as provided in this constitution. 

Sec. 26. The operation of the laws shall never be sus¬ 
pended except by the authority of the General Assembly. 

Sections 25 and 26 prohibit the use of the initiative and the 
referendum which are in operation in many states and the 
adoption of which in this state is favored by many people. 
In 1855, a local option law was held unconstitutional as being 
in conflict with section 25; the court subsequently reversed it¬ 
self on this ruling. 

Sec. 27. The privileges of the writ of habeas corpus shall 
not be suspended, except in case of rebellion or invasion, 
and then only if the public safety demand it. 

A writ of habeas corpus is granted as a right to a person 
confined to be brought before the court to have the question 
whether he is legally detained passed upon by the court. 

Sec. 28. Treason against the state shall consist only in 
levying war against it, and giving aid and comfort to its 
enemies. 

Sec. 29. No person shall be convicted of treason, except 
on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or 
upon his confession in open court. 

Sec. 30. No conviction shall work corruption of blood or 
forfeiture of estate. 

Sec. 31. No law shall restrain any of the inhabitants of 
the state from assembling together, in a peaceable manner, 
to consult for their common good; nor for instructing their 
representatives; nor from applying to the General Assembly 
for redress of grievances. 

Sec. 32. The people shall have a right to bear arms for 
the defense of themselves and the state. 

Sec. 33. The military shall be kept in strict subordina¬ 
tion to the civil power. 

Sec. 34. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered 
in any house without the consent of the owner; nor in time 
of war but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 

Sec. 35. The General Assembly shall not grant any title 

of nobility, nor confer hereditary distinctions. 

Section 30, relative to corruption of blood for conviction; 
and section 35 relative to titles of nobility and hereditary dis¬ 
tinctions date back to the period of the Revolutionary War; 
they probably do no harm in a constitution and but very little 
good. 

Sec. 36. Emigration from the state shall not be pro¬ 
hibited. 

Sec. 37. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude, within the state, otherwise than for the punish¬ 
ment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly con¬ 
victed. No indenture of any negro or mulatto, made or exe¬ 
cuted out of the bounds of the state, shall be valid within 
the state. 

Section 37 is entirely obsolete and should be stricken out. 

It may be said generally as to the fundamental and ancient 
rights and privileges expressed in the Bill of Rights that they 


132 NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


existed long - before our constitution was written, and do not 
depend upon any constitution,—certainly not upon a state con¬ 
stitution,—for their security and permanency. They are guar¬ 
anteed and established, and in most cases in substantially the 
same words, by the constitution of the United States. The 
people of Indiana could not if they would divest themselves 
of these fundamental rights. 

ARTICLE II. 

Suffrage and Election. 

Section 1. All elections shall be free and equal. 

Sec. 2. In all elections not otherwise provided for by 
this constitution, every male citizen of the United States, 
of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, who shall 
have resided in the state during the six months, and in the 
township sixty days, and in the ward or precinct thirty 
days immediately preceding such election; and every male 
of foreign birth, of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, 
who shall have resided in the United States one year, and 
shall have resided in this state during the six months, and 
in the township sixty days, and in the ward or precinct thirty 
days, immediately preceding such election, and shall have 
declared his intention to become a citizen of the United 
States, conformably to the laws of the United States on the 
subject of naturalization, shall be entitled to vote in the town¬ 
ship or precinct where he may reside, if he shall have been 
duly registered according to law. 

The word male should probably be stricken from all provi¬ 
sions concerning suffrage qualifications. According to the re¬ 
cent military orders issued by the department of war the 
lower military age limit is nineteen years. Should the age for 
suffrage be correspondingly reduced? Certainly no foreigner 
should be permitted to vote until he is fully naturalized. At 
the expiration of this probationary naturalization period, aliens 
undergoing the process of naturalization would be familiar 
with the English language and tolerably familiar with our 
political institutions. There is likewise considerable sentiment 
in favor of educational qualification for voting. 

Sec. 3. No soldier, seaman or marine, in the army or 
navy of the United States, or their allies, shall be deemed to 
have acquired a residence in this state in consequence of 
having been stationed within the same; nor shall any such 
soldier, seaman or marine, have the right to vote. 

Persons regularly enrolled in the United States army and 
the state militia who are absent from their precincts on elec¬ 
tion day should be permitted to vote by mail. 

Sec. 4. No person shall be deemed to have lost his resi¬ 
dence in the state by reason of his absence either on busi¬ 
ness of the state or of the United States. 

Sec. 5. [Stricken out by constitutional amendment of 
March 24, 1881.] 

Sec. 6. Every person shall be disqualified from holding 
office during the term for which he may have been elected, 
who shall have given or offered a bribe, threat, or reward to 
procure his election. 



AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


133 


See. 7. Every person who shall give or accept a chal¬ 
lenge to fight a duel, or who shall knowingly carry to another 
person such challenge, or who shall agree to go out of the 
state to fight a duel, shall be ineligible to any office of trust 
or profit. 

This provision relative to duelling - is hardly pertinent any 
more, since the practice of duelling has been discontinued. 

Sec. 8. The General Assembly shall have power to de¬ 
prive of the right of suffrage, and to render ineligible any 
person convicted of an infamous crime. 

Sec. 9. No person holding a lucrative office or appoint¬ 
ment, under the United States, or under this state, shall be 
eligible to a seat in the General Assembly; nor shall any 
person hold more than one lucrative office at the same time, 
except as in this constitution expressly permitted: Pro¬ 
vided, That offices in the rrplitia, to which there is attached 
no annual salary, and the office of deputy postmaster, where 
the compensation does not exceed ninety dollars per annum, 
shall not be deemed lucrative; And provided, also, That 
counties containing less than one thousand polls may confer 
the office of clerk, recorder and auditor, or any two of said 
offices, upon the same person. 

The term lucrative office should be re-defined. 

Sec. 10. No person who may hereafter be a collector or 
holder of public moneys, shall be eligible to any office of 
trust or profit until he shall have accounted for and paid 
over, according to law, all sums for which he may be liable. 

See 122 Ind. 113 and 127 Ind. 588. 

Sec. 11. In all cases in which it is provided that an office 
shall not be filled by the same person more than a certain 
number of years continuously, an appointment pro tempore 
shall not be reckoned a part of that term. 

Sec. 12. In all cases, except treason, felony and breach 
of the peace, electors shall be free from arrest in going to 
elections, during their attendance there, and in returning 
from the same. 

Sec. 13. All elections by the people shall be by ballot; 
and all elections by the General Assembly, or by either 
branch thereof, shall be viva voce. 

Sec. 14. All general elections shall be held on the first 
Tuesday after the first Monday in November; but township 
elections may be held at such time as may be provided by 
law: Provided, That the General Assembly may provide by 
law for the election of all judges of courts of general or ap¬ 
pellate jurisdiction, by an election to be held for such officers 
only, at which time no other officer shall be voted for; and 
shall also provide for the registration of all persons entitled 
to vote. 


134 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


ARTICLE III. 

Distribution of Powers. 

Section 1. The powers of the government are divided 
into three separate departments: the Legislative, the Ex¬ 
ecutive (including the Administrative), and the Judicial: and 
no person charged with official duties under one of these de¬ 
partments shall exercise any of the functions of another 
except as in this constitution expresly provided. 

See 34 Ind. 185, 4 Ind. 342, 137 Ind. 355, 127 Ind. 588 for dig- 
cussion of this section. 


ARTICLE IV. 

Legislative. 

Section 1. The legislative' authority of the state shall 
be vested in a General Assembly, which shall consist of a 
Senate and House of Representatives. The style of every 
law shall be, “Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the 
State of Indiana;” and no law shall be enacted except by bill. 

Every law must be styled according - to this section. An 
attempt to make an appropriation from the state treasury by 
joint resolution is void. See 91 Ind. 546. 

If the initiative and referendum are adopted, the people 
should reserve enough legislative power to themselves to in¬ 
sure their use. Should the General Assembly consist of two 
“Houses? When this section was under discussion in 1850, it 
was urged that the Senate be abolished and that the General 
Assembly consist of a House of Representatives only. 

Sec. 2. The Senate shall not exceed fifty, nor the House 
of Representatives one hundred members; and they shall be 
chosen by the electors of the respective counties or districts 
into which the State may, from time to time, be divided. 

The membership is now fixed at the maximum, fifty senators 
and one hundred representatives. 

The question of the membership of the House and Senate 
should be given thoughtful consideration. A large member¬ 
ship insures wide and general representation; experience has 
shown, however, that a few men, not to exceed a half dozen 
in each House, actually do the work and carry the responsi¬ 
bilities of the legislation enacted. These considerations have 
led thoughtful observers to conclude that the membership of 
the two Houses might well be reduced. 

Sec. 3. Senators shall be elected for the term of four 
years, and representatives for the term of two years, from 
the day next after their general election: Provided, how¬ 
ever, That the senators elect, at the second meeting of the 
General Assembly under this constitution, shall be divided, 
by lot, into two equal classes, as nearly as may be; and the 
seats of senators of the first class shall be vacated at the 
expiration of two years, and those of the second class at 
the expiration of four years; so that one-half, as nearly as 
possible, shall be chosen biennially forever thereafter. And 
in case of increase in the number of senators, they shall be 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


135 


so annexed by lot, to the one or the other of the two classes, 
as to keep them as nearly equal as practicable. 

Sec. 4. The General Assembly shall, at its second session 
after the adoption of this constitution, and every sixth year 
thereafter, cause an enumeration to be made of all the male 
inhabitants over the age of twenty-one years. 

This enumeration was taken in 1914 and a new enumeration 
will be taken in 1920. The enumeration is taken by the town¬ 
ship trustee. 

Sec. 5. The number of senators and representatives shall, 
at the session next following each period of making such 
enumeration, be fixed by law, and apportioned among the 
several counties, according to the number of male inhabi¬ 
tants, above twenty-one years of age, in each: Provided, 
That the first and second elections of members of the Gen¬ 
eral Assembly, under this constitution, shall be according 
to the apportionment last made by the General Assembly 
before the adoption of this constitution. 

The legislature has sole power to make apportionment, but 
the courts have frequently declared such apportionments void. 
See 144 Ind. 503, 145 Ind. 71 and 162 Ind. 568. 

Sec. 6. A Senatorial or Representative District, where 
more than one county shall constitute a district, shall be 
composed of contiguous counties; and no county, for sena¬ 
torial apportionment, shall ever be divided. 

Senatorial and representative districts are either single or 
joint. Single districts are composed of one county although 
such county may have more than one member. Joint districts 
consist of two or more counties. If a county has more than 
enough population for a member or number of members and 
not enough for an additional member it is usually joined with 
a smaller county which has not enough for a single member. 
Thus Marion county has four senators and is joined with 
Morgan and Hendricks in a joint district to elect an additional 
senator. 

Sec. 7. No person shall be a senator or a representative 
who, at the time of his election, is not a citizen of the United 
States; nor any one who has not been, for two years next 
preceding his election, an inhabitant of this state, and for 
one year next preceding his election, an inhabitant of the 
county or district whence he may be chosen. Senators shall 
be at least twenty-five, and representatives at least twenty- 
one years of age. 

Sec. 8. Senators and representatives, in all cases except 
treason, felony, and breach of the peace, shall be privileged 
from arrest during the session of the General Assembly, 
and in going to and returning from the same; and shall not 
be subject to any civil process during the session of the 
General Assembly, nor during the fifteen days next before 
the commencement thereof. For any speech or debate in 
either House, a member shall not be questioned in any other 
place. 

Sec. 9. The sessions of the General Assembly shall be 


136 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


held biennially at the capital of the State, commencing on 
the Thursday next after the first Monday of January, in 
the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, and on 
the same day of every second year thereafter, unless a dif¬ 
ferent day or place shall have been appointed by law. But 
if, in the opinion of the Governor, the public welfare shall 
require it, he may, at any time, by proclamation, call a spe¬ 
cial session. 

The provision that the legislature shall convene on Thurs¬ 
day is a significant illustration of the condition that existed 
when the constitution was adopted. The reasons underlying 
this provision as shown by the proceedings of the convention of 
1851 are that a representative from Laporte and “other distant 
portions of the state” may be able to spend Sunday worshipping 
with his family, and still have the necessary three days in 
which to reach the capital in time for the legislature. 

Sec. 10. Each House, when assembled, shall choose its 
own officers (the President of the Senate excepted), judge 
the elections, qualifications and returns of its own members, 
determine its rules of proceeding, and sit upon its own ad¬ 
journment. But neither House shall, without the consent 
of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any 
place other than that in which it may be sitting. 

Sec. 11. Two-thirds of each House shall constitute a 
quorum to do business; but a smaller number may meet 
adjourn from day to day, and compel the attendance of ab¬ 
sent members. A quorum being in attendance, if either 
House fail to effect an organization within the first five 
days thereafter, the members of the House so failing shall 
be entitled to no compensation from the end of the said five 
days, until an organization shall have been effected. 

Sec. 12. Each House shall keep a journal of its proceed¬ 
ings, and publish the same. The yeas and nays, on any 
question, shall, at the request of any two members, be en¬ 
tered, together with the names of the members demanding 
the same, on the journal: Provided, That on a motion to 
adjourn, it shall require one-tenth of the members present 
to order the yeas and nays. 

The legislative journal is conclusive as to the facts that 
appear in it. See 11 Ind. 424. 

Sec. 13. The doors of each House, and of committees of 
the whole, shall be kept open, except in such cases as, in 
the opinion of either House, may require secrecy. 

Sec. 14. Either House may punish its members for dis¬ 
orderly behavior, and may, with the concurrence of two- 
thirds, expel a member; but not a second time for the same 
cause. 

Sec. 15. Either House, during its session, may punish, 
by imprisonment, any person not a member, who shall have 
been guilty of disrespect to the House, by disorderly or con¬ 
temptuous behavior in its presence; but such imprisonment 
shall not, at any time, exceed twenty-four hours. 

Sec. 16. Each House shall have all powers necessary for 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 137 


a branch of the legislative department of a free and inde¬ 
pendent state. 

Sec. 17. Bills may originate in either House, but may be 
amended or rejected in the other, except that bills for rais¬ 
ing revenues shall originate in the House of Representatives. 

Under a similar provision in the U. S. constitution it is 
held to apply to bills levying- taxes and not to those incident¬ 
ally creating revenue. 202 U. S. 429. 

Sec. 18. Every bill shall be read by sections, on three 
several days in each House; unless, in case of emergency, 
two-thirds of the House where such bill may be depending 
shall, by a vote of yeas and nays, deem it expedient to dis¬ 
pense with this rule; but the reading of a bill by sections, 
on its final passage, shall in no case be dispensed with; and 
the vote on the passage of every bill or joint resolution shall 
be taken by yeas and nays. 

The courts do not go behind the record to see if a bill 
actually passed legally. If it is authenticated by the presiding 
officers and signed by the governor it is a law. See 141 Ind. 
281 and cases cited. 

This provision about reading bills by sections on three sev¬ 
eral days is not observed and the amount of time necessary to 
do so renders it impossible. A more workable provision, 
equally calculated to safeguard legislation, should be provided. 

Sec. 19. Every act shall embrace but one subject, and 
matters properly connected therewith; which subject shall 
be expressed in the title.. But if any subject shall be em¬ 
braced in an act, which shall not be expressed in the title, 
such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall 
not be expressed in the title. 

If the title of the act fairly gives notice so as to reasonably 
lead to an inquiry into the body of the bill, it is all that is 
necessary. It need not amount to an abstract of the contents. 
140 Ind. 628 and cases cited. 

Some provision should be made which will authorize the 
use of convenient short titles. 

Sec. 20. Ever*y act and joint resolution shall be plainly 
worded, avoiding, as far as practicable, the use of technical 
terms. 

Sec. 21. No act shall ever be revised or amended by 
mere reference to its title; but the act revised, or section 
amended, shall be set forth and published at full length. 

This requires that the amending act refer to the title of 
the act to be amended and that the section be set forth as it 
will appear when amended. See 162 Ind. 69. 

Sec. 22. The General Assembly shall not pass local or 
special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that 
is to say: 

Regulating the jurisdiction and duties of justices of the 
peace and of constables: 

For the punishment of crimes and misdemeanors; 

Regulating the practice in courts of justice; 

Providing for changing the venue in civil and criminal 
cases; 




138 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Granting divorces; 

Changing the names of persons; 

For laying out, opening and working on, highways and 
for the election or appointment of supervisors; 

Vacating roads, town plats, streets, alleys and public 
squares; 

Summoning and empaneling grand and petit juries, and 
providing for their compensation; 

Regulating county and township business; 

Regulating the election of county and township officers, 
and their compensation; 

For the assessment and collection of taxes for State, 
county, township or road purposes; 

Providing for supporting common schools, and for the 
preservation of school funds; 

In relation to fees or salaries; except that the laws may 
be so made as to grade the compensation of officers in pro¬ 
portion to the population and the necessary services required; 

In relation to interest on money; 

Providing for opening and conducting elections of State, 
county or township officers, and designating the places of 
voting; 

Providing for the sale of real estate belonging to minors, 
or other persons laboring under legal disabilities, by execu¬ 
tors, administrators, guardians or trustees. 

A local act is one which applies to a particular place or 
which applies differently to a particular place than to the rest 
of the state. A special act may be local or it may attempt to 
apply to persons or classes differently than to the whole people. 

Sec. 23. In all the cases enumerated in the preceding 
section, and in all other cases where a general law can be 
made applicable, all laws shall be general and of uniform 
operation throughout the state. 

The whole subject of local legislation is a very baffling 
one. The present provision has been beneficial in many ways 
and obstructive in others. While preserving the general prin¬ 
ciple of sections 22 and 23 some change should be made to 
lberalize them. 

Sec. 24. Provisions may be made by general law, for 
bringing suits against the state, as to all liabilities originat¬ 
ing after the adoption of this constitution; but no special 
act authorizing such suit to be brought, or making compen¬ 
sation to any person claiming damages against the state, 
shall ever be passed. 

Sec. 25. A majority of all the members elected to each 
House shall be necessary to pass every bill or joint resolu¬ 
tion; and all bills and joint resolutions so passed shall be 
signed by the presiding officers of the respective Houses. 

It requires 26 senators and 51 representatives to pass any 
bill. 

Taken in connection with section 21 of Article V, it is not 
clear whether the lieutenant-governor has the right to vote on 
the passage of bills and joint resolutions. These two sections 
should be harmonized and cleared up. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 139 


Sec. 26. Any member of either House shall have the 
right to protest, and to have his protest, with his reasons 
for dissent, entered on the journal. 

Sec. 27. Every statute shall be a public law, unless other¬ 
wise declared in the statute itself. 

Sec. 28. No act shall take effect until the same shall have 
been published and circulated in the several counties of this 
state, by authority, except in case of emergency; which emer¬ 
gency shall be declared in the preamble or in the body of 
the law. 

The acts are printed and each clerk of the circuit court is 
supplied with copies for his county. When the last receipt is 
received from the clerks by the secretary of state, the Governor 
proclaims the laws in force. Emergency acts take effect the 
day they are signed by the Governor. 

Sec. 29. The members of the General Assembly shall 
receive for their services a compensation, to be fixed by law; 
but no increase of compensation shall take effect during the 
session at which such increase may be made. No session of 
the General Assembly, except the first under this constitu¬ 
tion, shall extend beyond the term of sixty-one days, nor 
any special session beyond the term of forty days. 

Sessions are limited to sixty-one and forty days including 
Sundays and holidays. 

If anything is certain, it is that sixty-one days is not long 
enough time for a legislature to do its work properly. The 
time should be appreciably lengthened. Some students favor 
a bi-sected session; according to this plan the legislature 
would meet and introduce bills and probably advance them to 
second reading; then adjourn and go home and consider and 
discuss these proposed measures with their constituents and 
then return, amend the bills accordingly and pass such as 
might meet the approval of a majority of the people. It has 
also been urged that no subjects should be taken up for con¬ 
sideration at a special session except such as are recommended 
in the call of the Governor. 

Sec. 30. No senator or representative shall, during the 
term for which he may have been elected, be eligible to any 
office, the election to which is vested in the General Assem¬ 
bly, nor shall he be appointed to any civil office of profit, 
which shall have been created, or the emoluments of which 
shall have been increased, during such term; but this latter 
provision shall not be construed to apply to any office elective 
by the people. 

Members of the legislature may be appointed on committees 
created for specific purposes as, for example, the investigation 
of a legislative subject. See 16 Ind. 497. 

ARTICLE V. 

Executive. 

Section 1. The executive powers of the state shall be 
vested in a governor. He shall hold his office during four 
years, and shall not be eligible more than four years in any 
period of eight years. 


140 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


A governor should be eligible to succeed himself; during 
his first term he learns the business and is thereafter enabled 
to render more efficient service to the people. The lieutenant- 
governor should likewise be eligible for re-election. 

Sec. 2. There shall be a lieutenant-governor, who shall 
hold his office during four years. 

Sec. 3. The governor and lieutenant-governor shall be 
elected at the times and places of choosing members of the 
General Assembly. 

Sec. 4. In voting for governor and lieutenant-governor 
the electors shall designate for whom they vote as governor, 
and for whom as lieutenant-governor. The returns of every 
election for governor and lieutenant-governor shall be sealed 
up and transmitted to the seat of government, directed to the 
speaker of the House of Representatives, who shall open and 
publish them in the presence of both Houses of the General 
Assembly. 

Sec. 5. The persons, respectively, having the highest num¬ 
ber of votes for governor and lieutenant-governor, shall be 
elected; but in case two or more persons shall have an equal 
and the highest number of votes for either office, the Gen¬ 
eral Assembly shall, by joint vote, forthwith proceed to elect 
one of the said persons governor or lieutenant-governor, as 
the case may be. 

Sec. 6. Contested elections for governor or lieutenant- 
governor shall be determined by the General Assembly, in 
such manner as may be prescribed by law. 

Sec. 7. No person shall be eligible to the office of gov¬ 
ernor or lieutenant-governor who shall not have been five 
years a citizen of the United States, and also a resident ot 
the State of Indiana during the five years next preceding 
his election; nor shall any person be eligible to either of 
the said offices who shall not have attained the age of 
thirty years. 

Sec. 8. No member of Congress, or person holding any 
office under the United States, or under this state, shall fill 
the office of governor or lieutenant-governor. 

Sec. 9. The official term of the governor or lieutenant- 
governor shall commence on the second Monday of January, 
in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three; and 
on the same day every fourth year thereafter. 

The term of governor and lieutenant-governor should begin 
before the General Assembly convenes. At present, the retiring 
governor delivers a message to the General Assembly recom¬ 
mending policies which he is powerless to carry out. Moreover 
the in-coming lieutenant-governor should be permitted to assist 
in the organization of the Senate and thus avoid deadlocks. 
By this arrangement the dominant party can perfect an organ¬ 
ization, promulgate its policy, carry it to fruition and of course 
be held responsible for its failure or success. 

Sec. 10. In case of the removal of the governor from 
office, or of his death, resignation or inability to discharge 
the duties of the office, the same shall devolve on the lieu¬ 
tenant-governor; and the General Assembly shall, by law, 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 141 


provide for the case of removal from office, death, resigna¬ 
tion, or inability, both of the governor and lieutenant-gov¬ 
ernor, declaring what officer then shall act as governor; 
and such officer shall act accordingly until the disability be 
removed or a governor be elected. 

Sec. 11. Whenever the lieutenant-governor shall act as 
governor, or shall be unable to attend as president of the 
Senate, the Senate shall elect one of its own members as 
president for the occasion. 

Sec. 12. The governor shall be commander-in-chief of the 
military and naval forces, and may call out such forces to 
execute the laws, or to suppress insurrection, or to repel 
invasion. 

Sec. 13. He shall, from time to time, give to the General 
Assembly information touching the condition of the state, 
and recommend such measures as he shall judge to be ex¬ 
pedient. 

Sec. 14. Every bill which shall have passed the General 
Assembly shall be presented to the governor; if he approve, 
he shall sign it, but if not, he shall return it, with his ob¬ 
jections, to the House in which it shall have originated, 
which Flouse shall enter the objections at large upon its 
journals, and proceed to reconsider the bill. If, after such 
reconsideration, a majority of all the members elected to 
that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, with 
the governor’s objections, to the other House, by which it 
shall likewise be reconsidered, and, if approved by a ma¬ 
jority of all the members elected to that House, it shall be a 
law. If any bill shall not be returned by the governor with¬ 
in three days, Sundays excepted, after it shall have been pre¬ 
sented to him, it shall be a law without his signature, un¬ 
less the general adjournment shall prevent its return, in 
which case it shall be a law, unless the governor, within 
five days next after such adjournment, shall file such bill, 
with his objections thereto, in the office of the Secretary 
of State, who shall lay the same before the General As¬ 
sembly at its next session in like manner as if it had been 
returned by the governor. But no bill shall be presented to 
the governor within two days next previous to the final 
adjournment of the General Assembly. 

Bills vetoed by the governor after adjournment are pre¬ 
sented to the next session, special or general, and may then 
be passed over his veto. 

The Governor should be authorized to veto items in appro¬ 
priation bills and also such portions of other measures as may 
be detached without interfering with the operation of the en¬ 
tire measure. 

Sec. 15. The governor shall transact all necessary busi¬ 
ness with the officers of government, and may require any 
information in writing from the officers of the administrative 
department, upon any subject relating to the duties of their 
respective offices. 

This section is the chief source of the Governor’s power 
over the state administration. 


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NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Sec. 16. He shall take care that the laws be faithfully 
executed. 

This power is dependent for its efficiency largely upon the 
General Assembly in giving or withholding power from the 
Governor in the laws. 

Under the present system the Governor is practically power¬ 
less to faithfully execute the laws since he has no authority 
over county sheriffs and other police officers. These local 
executive officers should be made responsible to the Governor 
in the execution of the law in the various localities of the 
state. 

Sec. 17. He shall have the power to grant reprieves, com¬ 
mutations and pardons, after conviction, for all offenses ex¬ 
cept treason and cases of impeachment, subject to such 
regulations as may be provided by law. Upon conviction 
for treason, he shall have power to suspend the execution of 
the sentence until the case shall be reported to the General 
Assembly at its next meeting, when the General Assembly 
shall either grant a pardon, commute the sentence, direct 
the execution of the sentence, or grant a further reprieve. 
He shall have power to remit fines and forfeitures, under 
such regulations as may be prescribed by law, and shall 
report to the General Assembly at its next meeting, each 
case of reprieve, commutation or pardon granted, and also 
the names of all persons in whose favor remission of fines and 
forfeitures shall have been made, and the several amounts 
remitted: Provided, however, That the General Assembly, 
may, by law, constitute a council, to be composed of officers 
of state, without whose advice and consent the governor 
shall not have power to grant pardons, in any case, except 
such as may, by law, be left to his sole power. 

Sec. 18. When, during a recess of the General Assembly, 
a vacancy shall happen in any office, the appointment to 
which is vested in the General Assembly, or when, at any 
time, a vacancy shall have occurred in any other state 
office, or in the office of judge of any court, the governor 
shall fill such vacancy by appointment, which shall expire 
when a successor shall have been elected and qualified. 

Sec. 19. He shall issue writs of election to fill such vacan¬ 
cies as may have occurred in the General Assembly. 

The only method of filling a vacancy in the General Assem¬ 
bly is by an election called by the Governor. 

Sec. 20. Should the seat of government become danger¬ 
ous from disease or a common enemy, he may convene the 
General Assembly at any other place. 

Sec. 21. The lieutenant-governor shall, by virtue of his 
office, be president of the Senate; have a right, when in 
committee of the whole, to join in debate, and to vote on 
all subjects, and, whenever the Senate shall be equally di¬ 
vided, he shall give the casting vote. 

This section, together with section 25 of Article IV, should 
be harmonized and re-worded so as to make it clear whether 
the lieutenant-governor has the power to vote on the passage 
of bills and joint resolutions. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 143 


Sec. 22. The governor shall, at stated times, receive for 
his services a compensation which shall neither be increased 
nor diminished during the term for which he shall have been 
elected. 

Sec. 23. The lieutenant-governor, while he shall act as 
president of the senate, shall receive for his services the 
same compensation as the speaker of the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives; and any person acting as governor shall receive 
the compensation attached to the office of governor. 

Sec. 24. Neither the governor nor lieutenant-governor 
shall be eligible to any other office during the term for which 
he shall have been elected. 

Either might, however, be elected or appointed to an office 
under the United States. 

ARTICLE VI. 

Administrative. 

Section 1. There shall be elected by the voters of the 
state, a secretary, an auditor, and a treasurer of state, who 
shall severally hold their offices for two years. They shall 
perform such duties as may be enjoined by law; and no per¬ 
son shall be eligible to either of said offices more than four 
years in any period of six years. 

The legislature cannot create other offices and transfer the 
duties of these officers to them. See 122 Ind. 17. 

Sec. 2. There shall be elected in ea£h county, by the 
voters thereof, at the time of holding general elections, a 
clerk of the circuit court, auditor, recorder, treasurer, sheriff, 
coroner and surveyor. The clerk, auditor and recorder shall 
continue in office four years; and no person shall be eligible 
to the office of clerk, recorder or auditor more than eight 
years in any period of twelve years. The treasurer, sheriff, 
coroner and surveyor, shall continue in office two years; and 
•no person shall be eligible to the office of treasurer or sheriff 
more than four years in any period of six years. 

The term “county clerk” as sometimes used is incorrect. 
This section designates the office as the “clerk of the circuit 
court”. See 9 Ind. App. 657. 

If we continue to elect state officers, the terms should be 
longer than two years. According to one school of thought, 
all minor state officers should be appointive. This is known as 
the Short Ballot idea. By virtue of this plan, only the Governor 
and one or two other officers would be elected. The theory 
is that since the work of the secretary, auditor and treasurer 
of state is predominantly clerical and technical, the Governor, 
after examining into the fitness of candidates could select some 
person with greater intelligence than the voters who are 
obliged to choose between persons whom they have never 
heard of. The same argument applied to county officers. At 
any rate the terms should be made uniform. 

Sec. 3. Such other county and township officers as may 
be necessary, shall be elected or appointed, in such manner 
as may be prescribed by law. 


144 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Sec. 4. No person shall be elected or appointed as a 
county officer, who shall not be an elector of the county; 
nor any one who shall not have been an inhabitant thereof 
during one year next preceding his appointment, if the county 
shall have been so long organized; but if the county shall 
not have been so long organized, then within the limits of 
the county or counties out of which the same shall have 
been taken. 

Any elector of a county is eligible to any office. 63 Ind. 507. 

Provision should be made for the selection of some of the 
county officers from outside of the county or even outside of 
the state. This applies particularly to the county surveyor 
and the county superintendent of schools. When a superin¬ 
tendent is selected for city schools the board advertises for 
candidates and selects that one whch combines the qualities 
and attainments demanded. There is no good reason why the 
same principle should not be applied in the selection of county 
superintendents. 

Sec. 5. The governor, and the secretary, auditor and 
treasurer of state, shall, severally, reside and keep the pub¬ 
lic records, books and papers, in any manner relating to the 
respective offices, at the seat of government. 

Sec. 6. All county, township, and town officers shall re¬ 
side within their respective counties, townships, and towns, 
and shall keep their respective offices at such places therein, 
and perform such duties as may be directed by law. 

One idea connected with local government is growing daily 
more prevalent: Should the township form of government be 
maintained? The duties imposed on the township trustee are 
exceedingly heterogeneous. If out-door poor relief is reor¬ 
ganized; if the schools are organized on a county basis; if the 
roads are put under the supervision of a competent county 
engineer; and the public drains under the charge of the county 
drainage commissioner, it is difficult to see what remains as 
the township’s share in the function of government. 

Sec. 7. All state officers shall, for crime, incapacity, or 
negligence, be liable to be removed from office, either by 
impeachment by the House of Representatives, to be tried 
by the Senate, or by a joint resolution of the General Assem¬ 
bly; two-thirds of the members elected to each branch voting, 
in either case, therefor. 

Sec. 8. All state, county, township, and town officers may 
be impeached, or removed from office, in such manner as 
may be prescribed by law. 

Sections 7 and 8, relative to the removal of state officers, 
are rather contradictory. At all events the process of removal 
should be clarified and rendered workable. 

Sec. 9. Vacancies in county, township, and town offices 
shall be filled in such manner as may be prescribed by law. 

Sec. 10. The General Assembly may confer upon the boards 
doing county business in the several counties, powers of a 
local administrative character. 

This has reference to the boards of county commissioners 
which were then and are now the principal governmental 
agency of the county. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 145 


ARTICLE VII. 

Judicial. 

Section 1. The Judicial power of the state shall be vested 
in a Supreme Court, in Circuit Courts, and in such other 
courts as the General Assembly may establish. 

Sec. 2. The Supreme Court shall consist of not less than 
three, nor more than five Judges; a majority of whom shall 
form a quorum. They shall hold their offices for six years, 
if they so long behave well. 

The membership of the supreme court should be increased 
and the appellate court should be abolished. The amount of 
work made necessary by the multiplication of industries, the 
increase of population and hence of litigation is quite beyond 
the powers of so small a court. The court should be allowed 
to sit in divisions as well as en banc. When sitting in divi¬ 
sions, each division could consider and dispense with suits of 
minor importance. Questions involving the constitutionality 
of a law should in all cases be considered by a full court. 
Should the supreme court be permitted to declare a law un¬ 
constitutional by a mere majority of one? Or should the con¬ 
stitution require three-fourths or four-fifths of the entire 
bench? Judges should hold office for longer than six years, 
possibly for twelve. Should judges be elected or appointed? 
If elected should they be elected at general or special elections? 
In either case they should be elected on non-partisan tickets. 
If appointed, should they be appointed by the Governor, or the 
Governor with the advice and consent of a board? If judges 
are elected or appointed for comparatively long terms in order 
to guarantee them independence and freedom from partisan 
prejudice, and they prove corrupt, inefficient or reactionary, 
how shall they be removed? Who is to determine that their 
alleged corruption, inefficiency or obsolescence justifies their 
removal? 

Sec. 3. The state shall be divided into as many districts 
as there are judges of the supreme court, and such districts 
shall be formed of contiguous territory, as nearly equal in 
population as, without dividing a county, the same can be 
made. One of said judges shall be elected from each dis¬ 
trict, and reside therein; but said judge shall be elected by 
the electors of the state at large. 

What is the object of electing or appointing judges from 
districts? Obviously the law is the same in all parts of the 
state. Is the object of electing by districts merely to secure a 
geographical distribution of the judicial patronage? 

Sec. 4. The supreme court shall have jurisdiction, co¬ 
extensive with the limits of the state, in appeals and writs 
of error, under such regulations and restrictions as may be 
prescribed by law. It shall also have such original jurisdic¬ 
tion as the General Assembly may confer. 

The legislature may not deprive the court of its appellate 
jurisdiction, but may limit it. 157 Ind. 600. 

Sec. 5. The supreme court shall, upon the decision of 
every case, give a statement in writing of each question 
arising in the record of such case, and the decision of the 
court thereon. 


146 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Sec. 6. The General Assembly shall provide by law, for 
the speedy publication of the decisions of the supreme court, 
made under this constitution, but no judge shall be allowed 
to report such decision. 

The decisions are prepared and published by the reporter 
of the supreme and appellate courts, a state officer elected for 
four years. 

Sec. 7. There shall be elected by the voters of the state, 
a clerk of the supreme court, who shall hold his office four 
years, and whose duties shall be prescribed by law. 

The clerk of the supreme court should be appointed, pos¬ 
sibly by the court itself and preferably for a long - term. The 
compilation of the court reports is a technical job and re¬ 
quires experts. 

Sec. 8. The circuit courts shall each consist of one judge, 
and shall have such civil and criminal jurisdiction as may 
be prescribed by law. 

Sec. 9. The state shall, from time to time, be divided into 
judicial circuits, and a judge for each circuit shall be elected 
by the voters thereof. He shall reside within the circuit, and 
shall hold his office for the term of six years, if he so long 
behave well. 

In populous circuits, where there is more work than one 
judge can dispatch, there should be an additional court or 
branch of the same court with concurrent jurisdiction. Or 
better still in the populous counties the court should be divided 
into departments, each in charge of a judge who has peculiar 
qualifications for the work and all work of that character 
should come to that particular department. As, for example, 
a domestic relations department, criminal department, probate, 
civil, etc. 

Sec. 10. The General Assembly may provide, by law, 
that the judge of one circuit may hold the courts of another 
circuit, in cases of necessity or convenience; and in case of 
temporary inability of any judge, from sickness or other 
cause, to hold the courts in his circuit, provision may be 
made, by law, for holding such courts. 

Sec. 11. There shall be elected, in each judicial circuit, 
by the voters thereof, a prosecuting attorney, who shall hold 
his office for two years. 

Prosecuting attorneys, if elected, should be elected for more 
than two years and should be under the direction of the 
attorney-general to the end that the department of justice 
may be centralized and be efficiently coordinated. 

Sec. 12. Any judge or prosecuting attorney, who shall 
have been convicted of corruption or other high crime, may, 
on information in the name of the state, be removed from 
office by the supreme court, or in such other manner as 
may be prescribed by law. 

This provision is non-workable. No judge or prosecuting 
attorney can be removed until he has been convicted; when 
removal would be unnecessary. For negligence or incapacity 
they are immune. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 147 


Sec. 13. The judges of the supreme court and circuit 
courts shall, at stated times, receive a compensation, which 
shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. 

This provision insures the independence of the judges. 

Sec. 14. A competent number of justices of the peace 
shall be elected by the voters in each township in the sev¬ 
eral counties. They shall continue in office four years, and 
their powers and duties shall be prescribed by law. 

The word “competent” seems to be in the wrong place. 

The justice of the peace system belongs to a former age. 
It should be ended or amended, preferably the former. 

Sec. 15. All judicial officers shall be conservators of the 
peace in their respective jurisdictions. 

Sec. 16. No person elected to any judicial office shall, 
during the terms for which he shall have been elected, be 
eligible to any office of trust or profit under the state, other 
than a judicial office. 

Sec. 17. The General Assembly may modify or abolish 
the grand jury system. 

Sec. 18. All criminal prosecutions shall be carried on in 
the name, and by the authority of the state; and the style 
of all processes shall be, “The State of Indiana.” 

Sec. 19. Tribunals of conciliation may be established, 
with such powers and duties as shall be prescribed by law; 
or the powers and duties of the same may be conferred upon 
other courts of justice; but such tribunals or other courts, 
when sitting as such, shall have no power to render judg¬ 
ment to be obligatory on the parties unless they voluntarily 
submit their matters of difference and agree to abide the 
judgment of such tribunal or court. 

Sec. 20. The General Assembly, at its first session after 
the adoption of this constitution, shall provide for the ap¬ 
pointment of three commissioners whose duty it shall be to 
revise, simplify and abridge the rules, practice, pleadings and 
forms of the courts of justice. And they shall provide for 
abolishing the distinct forms of action at law now in use; 
and that justice shall be administered in a uniform mode 
of pleading, without distinction between law and equity. 
And the General Assembly may, also, make it the duty of 
said commissioners to reduce into a systematic code the 
general statute law of the state; and said commissioners 
shall report, the result of their labors to the General Assem¬ 
bly, with such recommendations and suggestions, as to the 
abridgment and amendment, as to said commissioners may 
seem necessary or proper. Provision shall be made by law 
for filling vacancies, regulating the tenure of office and the 
compensation of said commissioners. 

This revision of the laws adopted in 1852 is the last official 
revision adopted. The revision of 1881 was compiled under 
authority of the legislature but was never adopted by the legis¬ 
lature. Existing compilations are private publications. 


148 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Sec. 21. Every person of good moral character, being a 
voter, shall be entitled to admission to practice law in all 
courts of justice. 

This does not prohibit women from practicing- law. See 
134 Ind. 665. 

This section should be so amended as to authorize the 
General Assembly to prescribe the qualifications to practice 
law. Or the section could be omitted and thus accomplish the 
same object. 


ARTICLE VIII. 

Education. 

Section 1. Knowledge and learning generally diffused 
throughout a community, being essential to the preservation 
of a free government, it shall be the duty of the General 
Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intel¬ 
lectual, scientific and agricultural improvement, and to pro¬ 
vide by law for a general and uniform system of common 
schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally 
open to all. 

Sec. 2. The common school fund shall consist of the con¬ 
gressional township fund, and the lands belonging thereto; 

The surplus revenue fund; 

The saline fund, and the lands belonging thereto; 

The bank tax fund, and the fund arising from the one 
hundred and fourteenth section of the charter of the State 
Bank of Indiana; 

The fund to be derived from the sale of county semi¬ 
naries, and the moneys and property heretofore held for 
such seminaries; from the fines assessed for breaches of the 
penal laws of the state; and from all forfeitures which may 
accrue; 

All lands and other estate which shall escheat to the 
state for want of heirs or kindred entitled to the inheritance; 

All lands that have been or may hereafter be granted to 
the state, where no special purpose is expressed in the grant, 
and the proceeds of the sale thereof; including the proceeds 
of the sales of the Swamp Lands granted to the state of 
Indiana by the act of congress, of the 28th of September, 
1850, after deducting the expense of selecting and draining 
the same; 

Taxes on the property of corporations that may be as¬ 
sessed by the General Assembly for common school purposes. 

Fines and forfeitures here contemplated are such as are 
assessed in criminal proceedings and not such penalties as may 
be recovered in civil actions. Thus, if a law provides that any 
person violating its provisions shall be liable to a penalty of 
$200 to be collected in a civil action, the amount does not go 
to the school fund. See 157 Ind. 37. For discussion of these 
funds, see the biennial reports of the state superintendent of 
public instruction. 

Sec. 3. The principal of the common school fund shall 
remain a perpetual fund, which may be increased, but shall 
never be diminished; and the income thereof shall be in- 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 149 


violably appropriated to the support of common schools, and 
to no other purpose whatever. 

Sec. 4. The General Assembly shall invest, in some safe 
and profitable manner, all such portions of the common 
school fund as have not heretofore been entrusted to the sev¬ 
eral counties; and shall make provisions, by law, for the dis¬ 
tribution, among the several counties, of the interest thereof. 

Sec. 5. If any county shall fail to demand its proportion 
of such interest for common school purposes, the same shall 
be reinvested for the benefit of such county. 

Sec. 6. The several counties shall be held liable for the 
preservation of so much of the said fund as may be entrusted 
to them, and for the payment of the annual interest thereon. 

Sec. 7. All trust funds held by the state shall remain 
inviolate, and be faithfully and exclusively applied to the 
purposes for which the trust was created. 

Much of this article is obsolete and the whole article should 
be rewritten. 

Sec. 8. The General Assembly shall provide for the elec¬ 
tion, by the voters of the state, of a state superintendent 
of public instruction, who shall hold his office for two years, 
and whose duties and compensation shall be prescribed by 
law. 

The superintendent of public instruction should not be 
elected; he should be appointed and the office should be entirely 
removed from politics. 


ARTICLE IX. 

State Institutions. 

Section 1. It shall be the duty of the General Assembly 
to provide by law for the support of Institutions for the 
education of the deaf and dumb, and of the blind; and, also, 
for the treatment of the insane. 

Sec. 2. The General Assembly shall provide houses of 
refuge for the correction and reformation of juvenile of¬ 
fenders. 

Sec. 3. The county boards shall have power to provide 
farms as an asylum for those persons who, by reason of 
age, infirmity, or other misfortune, have claims upon the 
sympathies and aid of society. 

ARTICLE X. 

Finance. 

Section 1. The General Assembly shall provide, by law, 
for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation; 
and shall prescribe such regulations as shall secure a just 
valuation for taxation of all property, both real and per¬ 
sonal, excepting such only for municipal, educational, liter¬ 
ary, scientific, religious or charitable purposes, as may be 
specially exempted by law. 


150 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


A tax for state purposes must be uniform and equal 
throughout the state, a tax for county purposes must be uni¬ 
form and equal throughout the county and a tax for township 
purposes must be uniform and equal throughout the township. 
155 Ind. 604. This section does not prohibit license fees and 
taxes. 159 Ind. 300. 

This section is very beautiful in theory but it has been per¬ 
haps more unjust than any other provision of the constitution 
in practice, since it operates to place almost the whole of taxa¬ 
tion on visible, tangible property. The constitution should be 
so amended as" to say nothing at all on the subject of taxation 
or it should be changed so as to provide for the classification 
of property, the income tax and the exemption of household 
goods. 

Sec. 2. All the revenues derived from the sale of any of 
the public works belonging to the state, and from the net 
annual income thereof, and any surplus that may, at any 
time, remain in the treasury derived from taxation for 
general state purposes, after the payment of the ordinary 
expenses of the government, and of the interest on bonds of 
the state, other than bank bonds, shall be annually applied, 
under the direction of the General Assembly, to the payment 
of the principal of the public debt. 

Sec. 3. No money shall be drawn from the treasury but 
in pursuance of appropriations made by law. 

Money cannot be appropriated by joint resolution. 91 Ind. 
546. 

Sec. 4. An accurate statement of the receipts and ex¬ 
penditures of the public money shall be published with the 
laws of each regular session of the General Assembly. 

See laws of Indiana 1913, pages 969 to 1005. 

Sec. 5. No law shall authorize any debt to be contracted, 
on behalf of the state, except in the following cases: To 
meet casual deficits in the revenue; to pay the interest on 
the state debt; to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, or, 
if hostilities be threatened, provide for public defense. 

The legislature may anticipate a deficit and authorize a 
loan to meet it. 118 Ind. 502. 

Perhaps the state ought to be authorized to contract debts 
for public improvements such as roads or canals; such debts 
adequately safeguarded will repay the state many fold in 
cheapened transportation facilities. 

Sec. 6. No county shall subscribe for stock in any incor¬ 
porated company, unless the same be paid for at the time 
of such subscription; nor shall any county loan its credit to 
any incorporated company, nor borrow money for the pur¬ 
pose of taking stock in any such company; nor shall the Gen¬ 
eral Assembly ever, on behalf of the state, assume the debts 
of any county, city, town or township, nor of any corporation 
whatever. 

See 166 Ind. 162. 

Sec. 7. No law or resolution shall ever be passed by the 
General Assembly of the state of Indiana that shall recog- 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 151 


nize any liability of this state to pay or redeem any cer¬ 
tificate of stock issued in pursuance of an act entitled “An 
act to provide for the funded debt of the state of Indiana, 
and for the completion of the Wabash & Erie Canal to 
Evansville, passed January 19, 1846, and an act supple¬ 
mental to said act passed January 29, 1847, which by the 
provisions of the said acts, or either of them, shall be pay¬ 
able exclusively from the proceeds of the canal lands, and 
the tolls and revenues of the canal in said acts mentioned; 
and no such certificates of stocks shall ever be paid by this 
state. 

Amendment adopted February 18, 1873. 

This Wabash and Erie Canal provision is now ancient his¬ 
tory. 


ARTICLE XI. 

Corporations. 

Section 1. The General Assembly shall not have power 
to establish, or incorporate any bank or banking company, 
or moneyed institution, for the purpose of issuing bills of 
credit, or bills payable to order or bearer, except under the 
conditions prescribed in this constitution. 

Sec. 2. No bank shall be established otherwise than un¬ 
der a general banking law, except as provided in the fourth 
section of this article. 

Sec. 3. If the General Assembly shall enact a general 
banking law, such law shall provide for the registry and 
countersigning, by an officer of state, of all paper credit 
designed to be circulated as money; and ample collateral 
security, readily convertible into specie, for the redemption 
of the same in gold or silver, shall be required; which col¬ 
lateral security shall be under the control of the proper 
officer or officers of state. 

Since the passage of the national banking act; state banks 
have not been permitted to issue paper credits to circulate as 
money. 

Sec. 4. The General Assembly may also charter a bank 
with branches, without collateral security, as required in the 
preceding section. 

Sec. 5. If the General Assembly shall establish a bank 
with branches, the branches shall be mutually responsible 
for each other’s liabilities, upon all paper credit issued as 
money. 

Sec. 6. The stockholders in every bank, or banking com¬ 
pany, shall be individually responsible to an amount over 
and above their stock, equal to their respective shares of 
stock, for all debts or liabilities of said bank or banking 
company. 

Sec. 7. All bills or notes issued as money, shall be, at all 
times, redeemable in gold or silver; and no law shall be 
passed, sanctioning, directly or indirectly, the suspension, 
by any bank or banking company, of specie payments. 


152 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


Sec. 8. Holders of bank notes shall be entitled, in case of 
insolvency, to preference of payment over all other creditors. 

Sec. 9. No bank shall receive, directly or indirectly, a 
greater rate of interest than shall be allowed by law to indi¬ 
viduals loaning money. 

Sec. 10. Every bank, or banking company, shall be re¬ 
quired to cease all banking operations within twenty years 
from the time of its organization, and promptly thereafter 
to close its business. 

Sec. 11. The General Assembly is not prohibited from 
investing the trust funds in a bank with branches; but in case 
of such investment, the safety of the same shall be guaran¬ 
teed by unquestionable security. 

Sec. 12. The state shall not be a stockholder in any bank, 
after the expiration of the present bank charter; nor shall 
the credit of the state ever be given, or loaned, in aid of any 
person, association, or corporation, nor shall the state here¬ 
after become a stockholder in any corporation or association. 

Sections 1 to 12 inclusive are no longer of any value. The 
state is not interested in banks except to regulate them and 
see that stockholders and depositors are adequately secured. 

Sec. 13. Corporations, other than banking, shall not be 
created by special act, but may be formed under general 
laws. 

This section prevents home rule for cities; corporations 
here referred to mean cities. At the time of its adoption there 
were no cities of the state with peculiar, complex municipal 
problems such as there are today. 

Sec. 14. Dues from corporations, other than banking, 
shall be secured by such individual liability of the corpora¬ 
tors, or other means, as may be prescribed by law. 


ARTICLE XII. 

Militia. 

Section 1. The militia shall consist of all able-bodied 
white male persons between the ages of eighteen and forty- 
five years, except such as may be exempted by the laws of 
the United States, or of this state; and shall be organized, 
officered, armed, equipped and trained in such manner as 
may be provided by law. 

Sec. 2. The governor shall appoint the adjutant, quar¬ 
termaster and commissary generals. 

Sec. 3. All militia officers shall be commissioned by the 
governor, and shall hold their offices not longer than six 
years. 

Sec. 4. The General Assembly shall determine the method 
of dividing the militia into divisions, brigades, regiments 
battalions and companies, and fix the rank of all staff officers. 

Sec. 5. The militia may be divided into classes of seden- 
' tary and active militia in such manner as shall be prescribed 
by law. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 153 


Sec. 6. No person conscientiously opposed to bearing 
aims shall be compelled to do militia duty; but such person 
shall pay an equivalent for exemption; the amount to be 
prescribed by law. 

This whole article should be rewritten to bring - it into har¬ 
mony with recent federal military regulations and such future 
developments as may be evolved by the war. Certainly it 
should be so changed as. to permit negroes to enter the state 
militia. 


ARTICLE XIII. 

Political and Municipal Corporations. 

Section 1. No political or municipal corporation in this 
state shall ever become indebted, in any manner or for any 
puipose, to any amount, in the aggregate exceeding two per 
centum on the value of taxable property within such corpora¬ 
tion, to be ascertained by the last assessment for state and 
county taxes, previous to the incurring of such indebted¬ 
ness, and all bonds or obligations, in excess of such amount, 
given by such corporations, shall be void: Provided, That in 
time of war, foreign invasion, or other great public calamity, 
on petition of a majority of the property owners, in number 
and value, within the limits of such corporation, the public 
authorities, in their discretion, may incur obligations neces¬ 
sary for the public protection and defense, to such an amount 
as may be requested in such petition. 

■ - Amendment of March 24, 1881. 

The civil city and the school city are distinct corporations 
under this section and each may become indebted to an amount 
equal to two per cent, of their assessed valuation. See 161 
Ind. 44, 155 Ind. 186. 

The original section xiii fixed negroes and mulattoes in 
bondage and was stricken out in 1881 and replaced by the pres¬ 
ent provision which with section 13 of Article XI has placed 
the cities in bondage. The two per cent, debt limit on taxable 
property valued at from twenty-five per cent, to forty per cent, 
of its cash value, has thwarted the normal development of 
many cities of the state. If the debt limit is not removed 
entirely, it should be raised, or the taxpayers, by a majority 
vote on the question fairly submitted to them, should be per¬ 
mitted to raise it to take care of emergencies and to facilitate 
the development of the city affected. 


ARTICLE XIV. 

Boundaries. 

Section 1. In order that the boundaries of the state may 
be known and established, it is hereby ordained and declared, 
that the state of Indiana is bounded on the east by the 
meridian line which forms the western boundary of the 
state of Ohio; on the south, by the Ohio river, from the 
mouth of the Great Miami river to the mouth of the Wabash 
river; on the west, by a line drawn along the middle of the 
Wabash river, from its mouth to a point where a due north 
line, drawn from the town of Vincennes, would last touch the 


154 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


northwestern shore of said Wabash river; and thence by a 
due north line, until the same shall intersect an east and 
west line, drawn through a point ten miles north of the 
southern extreme of Lake Michigan; on the north, by said 
cast and west line, until the same shall intersect the first- 
mentioned meridian line, which forms the western boundary 
of the state of Ohio. 

Sec. 2. The state of Indiana shall possess jurisdiction, 
and sovereignty co-extensive with the boundaries declared in 
the preceding section; and shall have concurrent jurisdiction, 
in civil and criminal cases, with the state of Kentucky on the 
Ohio river, and with the state of Illinois on the Wabash 
river, so far as said rivers form the common boundary be¬ 
tween this state and said states respectively. 

ARTICLE XV. 

Miscellaneous. 

Section 1. All officers whose appointment is not other¬ 
wise provided for in this constitution, shall be chosen in 
such manner as now is, or hereafter may be, prescribed 
by law. 

Sec. 2. When the duration of any office is not provided 
for by this constitution, it may be declared by law; and if 
not so declared, such office shall be held during the pleasure 
of the authority making the appointment. But the General 
Assembly shall not create any office, the tenure of which 
shall be longer than four years. 

Four year term provisions applies to park commissioners. 
151 Ind. 679. Does not apply to policemen. 158 Ind. 242. 

The tenure of office should be left to the discretion of the 
General Assembly and certainly should be for a longer period 
than four years when not expressly provided otherwise in the 
constitution. 

Sec. 3. Whenever it is provided in this constitution, or 
in any law which may be hereafter passed, that any officer, 
other than a member of the General Assembly, shall hold 
his office for any given term, the same shall be construed to 
mean that such officer shall hold his office for such term, and 
until his successor shall have been elected and qualified. 

An officer who has held an office the full limit allowed by 
the constitution cannot hold over. 128 Ind. 480. 

Sec. 4. Every person elected or appointed to any office 
under this constitution shall, before entering on the duties 
thereof, take an oath or affirmation to support the constitu¬ 
tion of this state and of the United States, and also an oath 
of office. 

Sec. 5. There shall be a seal of the state, kept by the 
governor for official purposes, which shall be called the Seal 
of the State of Indiana. 

Sec. 6. All commissions shall issue in the name of the 
state, shall be signed by the governor, sealed by the State 
Seal, and attested by the Secretary of State. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 


155 


Sec. 7. No county shall be reduced to an area less than 
four hundred square miles; nor shall any county under that 
area be further reduced. 

Sec. 8. No lottery shall be authorized, nor shall the sale 
of lottery tickets be allowed. 

This provision about lotteries is a legislative and not a 
constitutional question and should be deleted. 

Sec. 9. The following grounds owned by the state in 
Indianapolis, namely: the State House Square, the Governor’s 
Circle, and so much of out-lot numbered one hundred and 
forty-seven as lies north of the arm of the Central Canal, 
shall not be sold or leased. 

Sec. 10. Tt shall be the duty of the General Assembly to 
provide for the permanent enclosure and preservation of the 
Tippecanoe Battle Ground. 

It is not clear that sections 9 and 10 should be retained. 


ARTICLE XVI. 

Amendments. 

Section 1. Any amendment or amendments to this con¬ 
stitution may be proposed in either branch of the General 
Assembly; and if the same shall be agreed to by a majority 
of the members elected to each of the two houses, such pro¬ 
posed amendment or amendments shall, with the yeas and 
nays thereon, be entered on their journals and referred to 
the General Assembly to be chosen at the next general elec¬ 
tion; and, if in the General Assembly so next chosen, such 
proposed amendment or amendments shall be agreed to by a 
majority of all the members elected to each house, then it 
shall be the duty of the General Assembly to submit such 
amendment or amendments to the electors of the state, and 
if a majority of said electors shall ratify the same, such 
amendment or amendments shall become a part of this 
constitution. 

An amendment must receive a majority of all the votes cast 
at the election, and not merely a majority of the votes cast 
for or against the amendment. 156 Ind. 104. 

Sec. 2. If two or more amendments shall be submitted at 
the same time, they shall be submitted in such manner that 
the electors shall vote for or against each of such amend¬ 
ments separately; and while such an amendment or amend¬ 
ments which shall have been agreed upon by one General 
Assembly shall be awaiting the action of the succeeding 
General Assembly, or of the electors, no additional amend¬ 
ment or amendments shall be proposed. 

The amending process of the constitution has always been 
unworkable. Of approximately 485 amendments proposed 
under this provision only eight have ever been adopted; none 
of these ever received a constitutional majority; and of those 
adopted most pertained to the negro provisions which were 
obsolete and invalid without striking them out. All the legis- 


156 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


lative process should do is to get the amendment before the 
people. This can be done by passing one General Assembly. 
If the amendment secures a majority of the votes cast on the 
proposition, it should be declared adopted. 


REFERENCE INDEX TO THE 

CITIZEN. 


Vol. I, No. 1 to 10 inclusive by number, month, page and 

title. 


(This was prepared as a series of lessons for clubs and is 
being used in many classes and clubs throughout the state.) 

I. Our Constitution: Its Nature and Origin. 

No. 1 July—Page 2, The Nature of the Constitution. Page 5, 
Railroad vs. Stagecoach. Page 14, Constitutional Growth. 
No. 2 August—Page 4, An Expanding Constitution. 

No. 3 September}—Page 3, Old Constitution and New. 

Page 7, Constitution an Evolving Instrument. 

No. 5 November—Page 4, Is Our Present Constitution Too 
Old? 

No. 6 December—Page 13, Making a Constitution. 

No. 8 February—Page 4, What They Said, etc. Page 7, 
Personnel of the Constitutional Convention of 1851. 
Page 24, We Have Prospered. 

No. 9 March—Page 2, Our Constitution. 


II. Amending the Constitution. 

No. 5 November—Page 20, The Need of Constitutional Revi¬ 
sion in Indiana: The Amending Power. 

No. 6 December—Page 2, Impracticability of Amendment. 

No. 7 January—Page 16, Improving the Framework of Gov¬ 
ernment. 

No. 8 February—Page 4, What They Said, etc. 

No. 9 March—Page 16, Amending the Constitution. 

No. 10 April—Page 6, Efforts to Amend Since 1881. Page 4, 
Indiana Equal Suffrage Attempts. Page 14, Indiana Re¬ 
publican Platform for “Watchful Waiting” on Tax Re¬ 
form. 

III. Indiana Politics. 

No. 1 July—Page 23, The Great Conservatism. 

No. 2 August—Page 3, What’s It All About? 

No. 3 September—Page 1, A Diagnosis. Page 17, The Poli¬ 
tics of Citizenship. Page 20, Political Independence. 

No. 4 October—Page 3, The Germans in Politics. Page 10, 
Why Do They Do It? 

No. 5 November—Page 7, Ipse Dixit. 

No. 6 December—Page 4, Brownie Candidates. Page 5, In¬ 
diana Politics. • 

No. 7 January—Page 5, Indiana Politics. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 157 


No. 8 February—Page 1, Good Citizenship—Good Politics. 
Page 1, The A. B. C. of Indiana Politics. Page 2, Indiana 
Politics. Page 3, Liquor Dealers Declare Themselves. 
Page 4, Axioms of Politics. Page 10, What Did the 1914 
Election Settle? 

No. 10 April—Page 1, About Party Platforms. Page 24, Pro 
and Con. Page 11, Straight-From-the-Shoulder Politics. 

IV. Legislation. 

No. 1 July—Page 7, The Petition and What it Gets. Page 
13, A Responsible and Responsive Legislature. 

No. 2 August—Page 13, What Defects, etc. 

No. 3 September—Page 12, The National Popular Govern¬ 
ment League. 

No. 4 October—Page 9, The Liquor Lobby. 

No. 6 December—Page 13, Gary’s Park Law. 

No. 7 January—Page 13, Law Making in a Real Democracy. 
Page 20, The Legislative Council of Indiana Women. 

No. 8 February—Page 13, Local Legislation. 

No. 10 April—Page 16, The Initiative and Referendum. Page 
19, Theory and Practice of Representative Legislation. 

V. City Government. 

No. 1 July—Page 7, About Terre Haute—Then and Now. 
Page 8, Indiana’s Bad City Government. 

No. 2 August—Page 8, Indianapolis Government a Failure. 
Page 9, A Description and Comparison of Different Sys¬ 
tems. 

No. 3 September—Page 8, Municipal Home Rule. Page 9, 
Home Rule in Oklahoma. 

No. 4 October—Page 8, More Effective Democracy in City 
Government. Page 14, Close the Mayor’s Mouth. 

No. 5 November—Page 8, Home Rule for Cities. Page 13, 
Gary Needs Home Rule. 

No. 6 December—Page 21, A Model City Charter. 

No. 7 January—Page 7, Recall in Indianapolis. Page 14, The 
City Invisible. Page 17, Muncie, Rule Yourself. Page 
24, Why Can’t Gary Build School Houses? 

No. 8 February—Page 20, Indianapolis Back Yards. Page 
23, Bigness or Getting Around the Law. 

No. 9 March—Page 24, Indianapolis Sewage a State Issue. 

VI. Municipal Ownership. 

No. 5 November—Page 11, The Ft. Wayne Street Car Strike. 

No. 6 December—Page 8, Municipal Ownership—The Salva¬ 
tion of our Cities. Page 14, Astonishing Sacrifice. 

No. 7 January—Page 8, Municipal Ownership. 

No. 8 February—Page 8, Municipal Ownership—Same Ob¬ 
jections. 

No. 9 March—Page 8, Municipal Ownership in Anderson. 
Page 12, What Has Ft. Wayne Done for the Street Car 
Company? 


158 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


VII. Taxation. 

No. 1 July—Page 17, Taxation vs. Confiscation. 

No. 2 August—Page 16, What of the Remedy? 

No. 3 September—Page 15, Can the Indiana Legislature Con¬ 
stitutionally Classify Property for Taxation? Page 19, 
Increase of Tax Rates in Indiana. Page 21, Tax Reform 
—The Demand of Indiana Real Estate Dealers. 

No. 4 October—Page 15, Farmers Should Demand Constitu¬ 
tional Revision. Page 19, The Real Estate Man and a 
New Constitution. 

No. 5 November—Page 15, The Taxation of Credits. 

No. 6. December—Page 1, Tax Reform and New Constitu¬ 
tion. Page 15, Some Thoughts on Taxation. Page 22, 
The Indiana Real Estate Association and the New Con¬ 
stitution. 

No. 7 January—Page 14, Where is the Joke? Page 15, The 
Tax Clauses of State Constitutions. 

No. 8 February—Page 15, Imperfections of our General 
Property Tax. 

No. 9 March—Page 14, Home Owners, Especially Farmers, 
Take Note. Page 15, The State Revenues of Penn. 

No. 10 April—Page 15, Some Ideals of State Tax Systems. 

VIII. Our Judicial System. 

No. 1 July—Page 1, Our State Courts. 

No. 2 August—Page 2, Our Outgrown Court System. 

No. 3 September—Page 2, Shall Right of Trial by Jury Re¬ 
main Inviolate? 

No. 4 October—Page 11, Criminal Cases in Federal and State 
Courts. Page 2, Constitutional Qualifications for Law¬ 
yers. 

No. 5 November—Rage 2, An Independent Judiciary. 

No. 7 January—Page 3, The Law’s Delay. 

No. 8 February—Page 5, What is a Supreme Judge? Page 
6, The Judicial System of an Ancient Democracy. 

No. 10 April—Page 6, Humanizing the Supreme Court. 

IX. Suffrage and Elections. 

No. 1 July—Page 7, About Terre Haute—Then and Now. 
Page 6, Equal Suffrage. Page 18, Why Liquor Fights a 
Constitutional Convention. 

No. 2 August—Page 6, Women for a New Constitution. 
Page 7, Declaration and Naturalization. Page 8, Who 
Fails to Vote? 

No. 3 September—Page 1, When Shall Women Vote? Page 

6, The Advance. Page 13, Primary Election Laws. Page 
14, Indianapolis Election Fraud Cases. Page 16, Who 
Fought the Primary? 

No. 4 October—Page 6, The Results of Equal Suffrage. Page 

7, President Wilson on Woman Suffrage. Page 9, The 
Liquor Lobby. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 159 


No. 5 November—Page 6, The Late Elections. Page 19, 
Why We Oppose Pockets for Women. 

No. 6 December—Page 12, Farmers on Woman Suffrage. 
Page 19, National Equal Suffrage Activity—The Shaffroth 
Amendment. 

No. 7 January—Page 19, The Susan B. Anthony Amendment. 
Page 20, U. S. Senate Committee Reports Suffrage 
Amendment Favorably. 

No. 8 February—Page 19, A Confusion in Suffrage Forces. 

No. 9 March—Page 4, Humanity and Democracy. Page 6, 
Qualifying Alien Voters in Indiana. Page 6, By Louse 
or Calf. Page 20, Ballots or Beans. Page 20, The Pri¬ 
mary. Page 1, News and Notes. Page 3, The Old Oaken 
Bucket. Page 24, Preparedness in Indiana Against For¬ 
eign Immigration After the War. 

No. 10 April—Page 4, Indiana Equal Suffrage Attempts. 

X. Short Ballot. 

No. 3 September—Page 3, Root Exposes “Invisible Govern¬ 
ment.” Page 3, Old Constitution and New. 

No. 4 October—Page 21, A New Constitution for New York 
State. Page 23, The Short Ballot for Indiana. 

No. 5 November—Page 23, An Effort to Save the People 
Money. 

No. 6 December—Page 23, County Governments and the 
Short Ballot. 

No. 7 January—Page 23, The Problem of County Govern¬ 
ment. 

No. 9 March—Page 21, A Budget System for the State Page 
23, More Problems of County Government. 

XI. Labor and Social Justice. 

No. 1 July—Page 11, Organized Labor for a New Constitu¬ 
tion. 

No. 2 August—Page 15, A Political Football. 

No. 3 September—Page 11, Who is Represented? 

No. 4 October—Page 11, The Thirty-first Convention of the 
Indiana State Federation of Labor. 

No. 5 November—Page 11, The Ft. Wayne Street Car Strike. 

No. 6 December—Page 11, Constitutional Convention a Cry¬ 
ing Need. 

No. 7 January—Page 4, Satisfaction of Being Dissatisfied. 
Page 11, The Rule of the Plutocracy. 

No. 8 February—Page 11, Plutocratic Rule vs. Constitutional 

Guarantees. 

No. 9 March—Page 11, The Hope of Labor. 

XII. The Liquor Problem. 

No i j u iy—Page 18, Why Liquor Fights a Constitutional 
Convention. 

No. 2 August— Page 5, The Last Ditch.' Page 12, Brewers 
Will Reform the Saloonkeepers etc. 


160 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


No. 3 September—Page 18, Indiana Brewers as Reformers. 

No. 4 October—Page 9, The Liquor Lobby. Page 18, The 
Trail of the Water Wagon. 

No. 5 November—Page 18, The Lawlessness of the Liquor 
Interests. 

No. 6 December—Page 18, Liquor Not a Partisan Issue. 

No. 7 January—Page 18, The Progress of Prohibition. 

No. 8 February—Page 3, Liquor Dealers Declare Them¬ 
selves. Page 5, One More on Barleycorn. Page 18, In¬ 
diana Newspapers and the Liquor Traffic. Page 24, Re¬ 
publican Candidate Declares for Prohibition. 

No. 9 March—Page 18, Prohibition Gains in Indiana Cities. 

No. 10 April—Page 18, A Non-Partisan Fight for State-Wide 
Prohibition. 

No. 3 September—Page 7, Exit the Political Drug Store. 

XIII. Proportional Representation. 

No. 7 January—Page 7, The First American Test of Propor¬ 
tional Representation. Page 21, Non-Partisan City Gov¬ 
ernment. 

No. 8 February—Page 21, The Bucklin System of Preferen¬ 
tial Voting. 

XIV. Education. 

No. 1 July—Page 5, Educational Freedom. Page 14, Educa¬ 
tion and Citizenship in Indiana. 

No. 2 August—Page 7, The Broader Service that Teachers 
May Render the State. Page 12, Direct Civics. 

No. 4 October—Page 21, The Freedom of Teaching in Our 
Public Schools and Universities. 

No. 5 November—Page 16, Learning to Earn. Page 17, 
Woman Heads Indiana State Teachers’ Association. 
Page 17, Bible Study Rejected. Page 19, The New Spirit 
in History Teaching. Page 22, New Constitution Clubs 
in Colleges. Page 24, The Indiana High School Discus¬ 
sion League. 

No. 6 December—Page 7, Shall Students of Indianapolis 
High Schools Have Opportunity for Bible Study? 

No. 7 January—Page 24, Why Can’t Gary Build School 
Houses? 

No. 9 March—Page 24, The Citizen, a Civic Educator. 

No. 10 April—Page 5, Parents, Wake Up! Page 10, The In- 
diana-De Pauw Educational Debates. Page 12, Should 
the Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction 
be a Political Job? Page 13, The Second Indiana Inter- 
Collegiate Discussion Contest. Page 14, New Constitu¬ 
tion Club of Indiana State Normal School. Page 20, 
Looking Back on Indiana’s School System. Page 23, 
The Centennial Movement as an Educational Force. 
Page 24, Civic Housekeeping. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 161 

XV. Constitutional Progress in Other States. 

No. 1 July—Page 5, Railroad vs. Stagecoach. Page 14, Con¬ 
stitutional Growth. Page 19, The New York Convention. 
Page 20, Under Ohio’s New Constitution. Page 20, What 
the Old Bay State Needs. Page 23, Applies as Well to 
Indiana. Page 24, The Situation in Minnesota. Page 24, 
Maryland Needs a New Constitution. 

No. 2 August—Page 1, New York. Page 15, Tennessee 
Wants a New Constitution. 

No. 3 September—Page 3, Root Exposes “Invisible Govern¬ 
ment.” Page 20, Maryland is Fighting for a New Consti¬ 
tution. Page 21, New Constitution for Empire State. 

No. 4 October—Page 20, The Constitutional Situation in 
Tennessee. Page 20, A Lesson from Louisiana. Page 21, 
A New Constitution for New York State. 

No. 5 November—Page 1, New Constitution—What? Page 
5, Why the People of New York Turned Down the Pro¬ 
posed New Constitution? 

No. 6 December—Page 16, The New York Constitution: 
The Causes of Its Defeat and the Lessons. 

No. 8 February—Page 7, Tennessee Educators Take up New 
Constitution Movement in that State. 

No. 9 March—Page 3, Massachusetts a Good Example for 
Indiana. Page 19, Kansas Needs New Organic Law. 
Page 22, Missouri’s Old Constitution. 

No. 10 April—Page 17, Necessity for New Constitution for 
Alabama. Page 21, The Oklahoma Example of Popular 
Government. 

(See full report of the first Indiana Inter-collegiate Dis¬ 
cussion Contest No. 2, April, pp. 17-25.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Note: The following bibliography is not intended to be 
complete. It is suggestive only of a few readily available 
sources of information. An extensive bibliography may be 
procured from the Indiana Bureau of Legislative Informa¬ 
tion, State House, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Pamphlets cited may be used at the Indiana Bureau of 
Legislative Information and books may be found in the 
state Library and in many city libraries. 

Package libraries on all of these subjects may be bor¬ 
rowed for two weeks from the Bureau of Public Discussion, 
Extension Division, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indi¬ 
ana. Postage is paid one way. 

I. 

THE NATURE OF A CONSTITUTION. 

Books on General Study of Government. Should be read 

in the order named. 

“Our America.” John A. Lapp, Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indian¬ 
apolis. $1.25. 


162 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


“American Government and Politics.” Chas. A. Beard. T. he 
MacMillan Co., New York. $2.25. 

“Principles of American State Administration.” John M. 
Matthews. Appleton Co., New York. $2.50. 

“State Government in the United States.” Arthur N. Hol¬ 
combe. The MacMillan Co., New York. $2.25. 

“Social Reform and the Constitution.” Frank J. Goodnow, 

L.L.D. The MacMillan Co, New York. $1.50. 

“American State Constitutions.” James Q. Dealey, Ph.D. 
Ginn & Co, Chicago. $1.40. 

II. 

HOME RULE FOR CITIES. 

“European Cities at Work.” Frederic C. Howe. Chas. 
Scribners’ Sons, New York. $1.75. 

“The Law and the Practice of Municipal Home Rule.” How¬ 
ard Lee McBain. Columbia University Press, New 
York. $5.00. (Complete Treatise.) 

“Municipal Freedom”—A study of the Commission Govern¬ 
ment. Oswald Ryan. Page & Co., New York. $1.00. 

“The Modern City and Its Problems.” Frederick C. Howe, 
Ph.D. Chapters VI, VII, VIII, IX. Scribners’ Sons, 
New York. $1.50. 

(Pamphlets.) 

“Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Conference of Mayors of 
New York.” Address: Secretary Bureau of Municipal 
Research, 261 Broadway, New York City. Free. 

“Home Rule for Cites.” Theodore F. Thieme, Ft. Wayne, 
Ind. Address: Author. Free. 

“Forms of City Government.” Frank G. Bates. Bulletin 
No. 5. Indiana Bureau of Legislative Information. In¬ 
dianapolis, Ind. Free. 

III. 

REFORM IN EDUCATION. 

“Schools of Tomorrow.” John and Evelyn Dewey. E. P. 
Dutton & Co., 681 Fifth Ave., New York. $1.50. 

“Democracy and Education.” John Dewey. The MacMillan 
Co., New York. $1.40. 

“State and County School Administration.” Cubberley & 
Elliott. The MacMillan Co., New York. $2.50. 

IV. 

INITIATIVE AND REFERUNDUM. 

“The Initiative, Referendum and Recall.” Munro. Appleton 
Co., New York. $1.50. 

“The Operation of the Initiative, Referendum and Recall 
in Oregon.” J. D. Barnett. The MacMillan Co. $2.00. 

“Government by All the People.” Delos F. Wilcox. The 
MacMillan Co. $1.50. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 163 


(Pamphlets.) 

“Representative Government and the Common Law.” An 
address by Hon. Emmet O’Neal. Senate Document No. 
240. 62 Cong. 2 Session. Free. 

“The Initiative in Switzerland.” Report by Robert LaFol- 
lette. Senate Document No. 126. 61 Cong. 1st Session. 

Free. 

“Direct Legislation.” Article by Prof. Frank E. Parsons. 

Senate Document 360. 63 Cong. 2nd Session. Free. 

“The Compulsory Initiative and Referendum and Recall of 
Judges.” An address by Henry Cabot Lodge. Senate 
Document 406. 62 Cong. 2nd Session. Free 

“The State-wide Initiative and Referendum.” Judson King, 
Exec. Sec’y National Popular Government League, 637 
Munsey Bldg., Washington, D. C. 

See also the Equity Magazine, 1520 Chestnut St., Philadel¬ 
phia, Pa. 

The above listed articles on Initiative and Referendum 
contain also discussions of the Recall. 


V. 

SPIORT BALLOT. 

“Short Ballot Principles.” Richard S. Childs. Houghton, 
Boston. $1.00. 

“Principles of American State Administration.” Chapters 
4, 6, 7, 8, 19. John Mabry Mathews. D. Appleton & 
Co., New York. $2.50. 

(Pamphlets.) 

“Short Ballot Bulletin.” The National Short Ballot Organ¬ 
ization, 383 Fourth Ave., New York. 

“The Short Ballot.” The Short Ballot Committee of the 
Civic League of St. Louis. 

VI. 

RECALL. 

“Recall of Judges.” Bulletin of University of Kansas, Dec. 
1, 1913. Vol. 15, No. 3. Lawrence, Kansas. 

“Recall of Constitutional Safeguards.” Address given at 
Oklahoma State Bar Association by Rome G. Brown, 
Minneapolis, Minn. 

“Select List on Recall of Judicial Dicisions.” Library of 
Congress, Washington, D. C. 

VII. 

JUDICIAL REFORM. 

“Law and Its Administration.” Harlan F. Stone, Columbia 
University Press, New York. 




164 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


(Pamphlets.) 

“Preliminary Report on Efficiency in the Administration of 
Justice.” Charles W. Eliot, Lewis Brandeis and others. 
National Economic League, 6 Beacon St., Boston, Mass. 

“Judicial Reform—Case and Comment Magazine.” Lawyers 
Co-operative Publishing Co., Aqueduct Bldg., Rochester, 
New York. 10c. 

“Organization of Courts.” Bulletin No. 6. Roscoe Pound, 
Dean Harvard Law School. American Judicature Soci¬ 
ety, Room 340, 29 S. LaSalle St., Chicago. 


VIII. 

TAXATION. 

“Taxation.” C. B. Fillebrown. McClurg & Co., Chicago. 
50c. 

“Progress and Poverty.” Henry George. Doubleday-Page 
& Co., New York. $1.00. 

“Report of Tax Commission of Indiana.” 1916. Robert A. 
Campbell, State Library. 

“Principles of Taxation.” W. H. Lyon. Houghton Co., 
Boston. 75c. 

“Essays in Taaxtion.” Edwin R. A. Seligman. The Mac¬ 
Millan Co., New York. $3.00. 


IX. 

REFORM IN SUFFRAGE AND ELECTIONS. 

Woman’s Franchise League, 816 Odd Fellow Bldg., Indian¬ 
apolis, Ind. 

National American Woman’s Suffrage Ass’n, 171 Madison 
Ave., New York. 

Indiana Branch of the National Woman’s Party, 916 Fletch¬ 
er Savings and Trust Bldg., Indianapolis, Ind. 

National Woman’s Party, Lafayette Square, Washington, D. 

C. 


X. 

LABOR AND SOCIAL JUSTICE. 

“Democracy and Social Ethics.” Jane Addams. The Mac¬ 
Millan Co., New York. $1.25. 

“History of Organized Labor.” John Mitchell. Am. Book 
and Bible House, Philadelphia. $1.75. 

“Introduction to the Study of Organized Labor in America.” 

George G. Groat. The MacMillan Co., New York. $1.75. 
“Social Creed of the Churches.” Harry F. Ward. The Ab¬ 
ingdon Press. Cincinnati. 50c. 

“Principles of Labor Legislation.” J. R. Commons and J. 

B. Andrews. Harper & Bros., New York. $2.00. 
“Poverty and Riches.” Scott Nearing. Winston & Co., 
Philadelphia. $1.00. 


AND MANUAL OF READY REFERENCE 165 


“Social Welfare in New Zealand. Hugh H. Lusk. Sturgis 
& Walton Co., New York. $1.50. 

“New Worlds for Old.” H. G. Wells. Chas. Kerr & Co., 
Chicago. 60c. 

“Fatigue and Efficiency.” Josephine Goldmark. Russell 
Sage Foundation, 130 E. 22d St., New York. $2.00. 

“Status of Minimum Wage Legislation.” Florence Kelley. 
National Consumers’ League, 105 E. 22d St., New York. 

“Selected Articles on Trade Unionism.” E. D. Bullock. H. 
W. Wilson Co., White Plains, New York. $1.00. 

“Social Insurance.” Henry R. Seager. The MacMillan 
Co., New York. $1.00. 

“Kennedy Lectures for 1910.” New York School of Philan¬ 
thropy, 105 E. 22d St., New York. 

“Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission Reports.” 
Mass. Minimum Wage Commission, No. 1 Beacon St., 
Boston, Mass. 

“Socialism in Theory and Practice.” Morris Hillquit. The 
MacMillan Co., New York. 60c. 

“Social Insurance.” (Pamphlet.) I. M. Rubinow. Ameriacn 
Medical Ass’n, 535 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill. 

XI. 

THE BUDGET SYSTEM. 

(Pamphlets.) 

“The Budget.” William T. Donaldson. Bulletin No. 6. Bu¬ 
reau of Legislative Information, State House, Indianap¬ 
olis, Ind. _ 

“The Budget and the Citizen.” Mary B. Sayles. Reprint 
from Outlook Sept., 1908. State Library. 

“The Budget System.” Article by John A. Lapp in Second 
Annual Conference on Taxation in Indiana. University 
Bookstore, Bloomington, Ind. 25c. 

“Budget-Making for Maine Towns.” Oren Chalmer Hor- 
mell. Municipal Research Series No. 2. Bowdoin Col¬ 
lege, Brunswick, Maine. 

“Budget Systems.” Municipal Research. No. 62. Pp. 251 - 
447. Bureau of Municipal Research, 261 Broadway, New 
York City. 

“The Budget.” Suggestions for a State Budget. A. G. Low- 
rie. Wisconsin State Board of Public Affairs, 1912. 
American Political Science Review. Feb., 1913. Page 88. 

“The Budget of the City of Dayton, 1916.” Bureau of Mu¬ 
nicipal Research, 613 Schwind Bldg., Dayton, Ohio. 

XII. 

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 

“Proportional Representation.” John R. Commons. Amer¬ 
ican Academy of Political and Social Science, 609 Kent 
Hall, Columbia University, New York. No. 54. 50c. 

(Pamphlets.) 


166 


NEW CONSTITUTION TEXT-BOOK 


“Effective Voting.” C. G. Hoag. 63d Congress, 2d Session, 
Senate Document No. 359. 

“The Ashtabula Plan of Municipal Government.” Ashta¬ 
bula Chamber of Commerce, Ashtabula, Ohio. Free. 

“The History of Cumulative Voting and Minority Repre¬ 
sentation in Illinois.” Blaine F. Moore, University 
Press, Urbana, Ill. 50c. 1870-1908. 

See also the free publications of the American Proportional 
Representation League, Franklin Bank Building, Phila¬ 
delphia, Pa. 

XIII. 

THE LIQUOR PROBLEM. 

“The Anti-Saloon League Year Book.” Ernest H. Cherring- 
tion. The Antit-Saloon League of America. The 
American Issue Press, Westerville, Ohio. 25c. 

“Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic.” Lamar T. Beman. 
H. N. Wilson Co., New York. $1.00. 

“Prohibition Year Book.” National Prohibition Press, Chi¬ 
cago, Ill. 25c. 








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